978-0-765-31527-4
USA  /  eng
A Taste of Magic - Andre Norton, Jean Rabe
Tor Books (2006)
In Collection
#167

Read It:
No
Fantasy
Magic - Fiction, Revenge - Fiction, Young women - Fiction

"The Green Ones favored me this day."Thus begins A Taste of Magic, the latest magical world creation by Andre Norton.Wisteria is magically attuned to the world around her. Her senses relish the tastes of magic that the wonders of nature offer. But the peacefulness of her backwoods existence is shattered when her village is attacked by the raiding force of the bellicose Lord Purvis, who leaves only this twenty-something magic wielder and an adolescent lass as the inadvertent survivors.Wisteria has pledged herself to a mission. Now she and her young ward must brave the wilds beyond their home in pursuit of the ravager who destroyed everyone near and dear to their hearts. The woman with the Taste of Magic now has a taste for vengeance, and the blood oath she has pledged must be satisfied with the life of Lord Purvis.

Cover Artist Elwell, Tristan

Product Details
LoC Classification PS3527.O632T37 2006
Dewey 813/.54
Format Hardcover
Edition 1st ed.
Extras Dust Jacket
Cover Price $24.95
Nr of Pages 304
Height x Width 206 x 140 mm
First Edition Yes
Personal Details
Store SciFi Book Club
Location Mary Kelley's Personal Library
Purchase Price $12.99
Condition Near Mint
Owner Mary Kelley
Links Amazon US
Barnes & Noble

Notes
"A Tom Doherty Associates book."

SFBC Review:
Twenty-year-old Wisteria is no ordinary inhabitant of the village Nar. The daughter of a taster at the Emperor's board, Eri possesses the innate ability to sense the subtle truths of nature through her senses of taste and smell. Everything from the warble of birds to the weight of rain to the crawl of caterpillars yields potent essences for her to draw knowledge from.

But not all the information Eri receives is pleasant. And sometimes it's even terrifying like the overpowering scent of blood that assails her as she returns from a morning hunt. Even the fears raised by that warning cannot prepare her for what she finds amid the smoldering wreckage of her village: not a soul left alive save the young Lady Alysen, who bore witness to the slaughter and who points a wildly accusatory finger at Eri for being the one person the bloodthirsty Lord Purvis sought to kill in his rampage…and yet somehow missed.

Wracked with guilt as much as with a need for revenge, Eri swears a blood-oath to escort Alysen herself a crafty magic-wielder to those most able to help them bring Lord Purvis to justice: the witch-clan Nanoo. But as Eri and Alysen's journey progresses across a daunting wilderness where unforeseen magic and monstrous creatures await, one question looms: can the girl with magical taste become more than the sum of her taste for vengeance? Jacket art by Tristan Elwell (303 pp.) 2006.