The Romanceaholic

Expected Release Date: August 2, 2011
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Imprint: N/A
Author’s Website: http://melaniecard.com/
My Source for This Book: Netgalley
Part of a Series: Yes, Book 1, Chronicles of a Reluctant Necromancer
Series Best Read In Order: N/A
Steam Level: Warm

Official Blurb:

Twenty-year-old Ward de’Ath expected this to be a simple job—bring a nobleman’s daughter back from the dead for fifteen minutes, let her family say good-bye, and launch his fledgling career as a necromancer. Goddess knows he can’t be a surgeon—the Quayestri already branded him a criminal for trying—so bringing people back from the dead it is.

But when Ward wakes the beautiful Celia Carlyle, he gets more than he bargained for. Insistent that she’s been murdered, Celia begs Ward to keep her alive and help her find justice. By the time she drags him out her bedroom window and into the sewers, Ward can’t bring himself to break his damned physician’s Oath and desert her.

However, nothing is as it seems—including Celia. One second, she’s treating Ward like sewage, the next she’s kissing him. And for a nobleman’s daughter, she sure has a lot of enemies. If he could just convince his heart to give up on the infuriating beauty, he might get out of this alive…

I don’t normally start reviews off this way, but I honestly think that this was one if not the best books I’ve read all year, and since it’s almost July at the time of my writing this, that’s definitely saying something.

In Ward’s world, magic is commonplace and some things that we take for granted are completely forbidden, such as surgery.  Having always wanted to be a physician, Ward was kicked out before completing his training because of his penchant for grave-robbing — a distasteful but necessary occupation for one who wants to study the illicit practice of surgery.  Now forced to be a Necromancer for the rich, his job is to bring back those who have recently died for fifteen minutes so that their families can make peace with the deceased.

Hired by a rich man to wake Celia Carlyle, he is astonished when not only does she insist that she’s been murdered rather than having been simply “ill” as her family suggests, but she also sleeps with a dagger under her pillow, dresses in men’s clothing, and attempts to escape out the window.  Knowing that her disappearance will result in an accusation of grave-robbing, he follows her trying to convince her that she must return.  Instead Celia invokes Ward’s Physician’s Oath — an unbreakable vow to help all those who ask for assistance, and one punishable by eternal torture in the afterlife if broken.

Making his decision, he follows her, having to re-wake her several times as the fifteen-minute limit of the waking spell is reached.  At risk of permanently disturbing the “balance” between the worlds, he performs a dangerous spell to attempt to allow her to remain “awake” for a longer period, when something goes wrong.  In addition to the fact that he’s been forced to improvise with the required ingredients for the spell, he is interrupted before he can be certain his spell has been completed, but when Celia regains consciousness and helps to fight off their attackers, he assumes that everything worked as it should have.

However, it soon becomes apparent that his intended spell did not yield the expected results, as Celia shows no signs of decay, and in fact, actually seems… healthier than before.

Complicating matters is his own undeniable attraction towards her, but relations with the dead are strictly forbidden, and despite the fact that she eats, breathes, and walks, there is no denying that she had died and is therefore completely off-limits.

Add to that the fact that Celia is obviously not simply the pampered daughter of a rich noble, and Ward is soon drawn into a dangerous world of forbidden magic, assassinations, and deception.

What Worked For Me:

• The worldbuilding was absolutely incredible. The entire universe that Ms. Card has created is so vivid and complex with all sorts of social rules, religious strictures, and law enforcement that is just wonderful. I loved that there was so much
• I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to read a story where the heroine was the capable, intrepid, and adventurous one, while the hero was just some guy trying to get by.
• Ward is currently one of my favorite heroes ever. A bit of a Beta Hero (that is, an average Joe instead of an preternaturally capable man), Ward is trapped by his Physician’s Oath — a vow that he made to help anyone in need, and one punishable by torture in the afterlife if broken.  More than that though was how much he matured throughout the story. He went from being a bit of a bumbling idiot of a boy, despite his chronological age, and emerged someone who persevered despite all sorts of physical injuries and mental exhaustion, used his own ingenuity, and who took responsibility like a man rather than running away like a child.
• Celia, too, evolved a lot over the course of the novel. While she’ll never be a lady of silks and satins, at the end she is no longer a completely coldhearted, suspicious and mistrustful person, but instead allows herself to care for Ward, even if it’s just in the form of friendship.
• I also really enjoyed the motivations behind the villains, as well as the truth behind Celia’s murder.  The whole twist on who she could trust and who she couldn’t as well as the details about her first assignment added a whole new dimension to the story.
• The sub-plot with the Tracker was fantastic as well, giving us a lot more insight into Ward’s character and his skills, as well as reinforcing just how honorable a man he was doing things that he knew could end his life because it was what his Oath required of him.
• While there was no sex in this book (it is Upper YA, after all), there was just enough sexuality to keep me interested (so I like smut, sue me). Even better though was Ward’s reasons for not continuing, and Celia’s confusion over both her feelings for him and his rejection.

What Didn’t Work For Me:

• While exciting, I think the fact that Ward was always so physically injured in the later parts of the story were a little much for me.  I suspect the intention was to prove that his character was growing into so much more than he’d been at the opening of the book, but it seemed a little unrealistic that the didn’t simply collapse into a puddle of goo and sleep for a month at one point.
• I rather expected something more to come out of his encounters with the Tracker, and was a bit disappointed when nothing really seem to come of it.
• I really wish it had been explained why surgery was illegal. Using my own imagination, I could come up with the fact that it relied on something other than magic and religion in a society where those things were unparalleled, or possibly the fact that learning surgery so often involved grave robbing and desecration of corpses. However, that’s pure conjecture, because we were never given any reasoning, simply the information that it was a crime with severe repercussions if caught.

One point of note is that while I have labeled this as Young Adult for my own convenience, it is more of a New Adult/Upper YA Fantasy. Not having read a lot of Young Adult in my life, I’m not certain just how important this distinction is, only that it was made and I felt it was wise to point it out. I think the biggest difference is that the main characters are no longer teenagers, but are instead both in the first stages of real adulthood, complete with all of the complications that come along with that stage of life

I admit, I’m actually having a hard time believing that this is a debut novel. Ms. Card’s website and Goodreads profile list this as her only work, but I wonder if she’s written any previous novels under a different name. I must do some Googlefu and see what I can discover, because I’m absolutely in love with her writing style and am thirsting for more.

It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that I will be preordering any and all future books in this series, and I have a feeling I will be fangirling all over this one for a long time to come.

Recommended for fans of kick-butt heroines who reluctantly soften as they mature, heroes who actually have to work to earn the title, and an intriguing paranormal-fantasy universe to explore.

A very enthusiastically solid 5/5 Stars