Masques- Patricia Briggs

Aralorn is a noblewoman turned spy/assassin. She realized early on that she was not cut out for court life and left home to pursue a more fitting occupation. One day, she rescues a dying wolf who turns out to be a powerful mage in disguise. He becomes her companion and after four years eventually learns to trust her. Aralorn has been given a new assignment: spy on the ae'Magi, the powerful and charismatic leader of the mages. With shapeshifting magic of her own, she accomplishes this task, but also learns how cruel the man is behind his charming facade. Few dare speak ill of the ae'Magi as mages are to be respected and feared, but Aralorn sees the evil in him and makes it her mission to see him destroyed. Only with Wolf's help and a great deal of magic will this be a successful endeavor.

A quick note: This book is pretty obscure as in, there weren't that many copies printed. Should you want to read it, I think you'll be hard pressed to find a copy.

Overall Merit: This is very different from Briggs later work (see the Alpha and Omega series). It is unpolished and at times hard to follow. I like her character work so kudos for that. Because this was her first novel and written at the age of 20 nonetheless, I have to cut her some slack. I liked the concept and the relationship between Aralorn and Wolf, but she spent a lot of time describing unimportant things instead of focusing on the plot. There were a lot of extraneous characters and events and I think if the story had been taking in a different, more succinct direction it would have been stronger. Score- 7

Characters: This was the one aspect that Briggs did the best with. I liked Aralorn and Wolf. Wolf's personality and backstory was the stronger of the two, but Aralorn didn't annoy me in the way that so many fantasy heroines manage to do. She was legitimately independent and although her personality didn't smack me in the face with strength, she was solid and more importantly, not irritating. I mean there was no uber strength here, but the characters were enough to make me want to continue on and read the sequel even though I didn't absolutely adore this book or anything. Score- 8

Blush Factor: You can often tell a lot about an author (age, religion, political views) based on how they handle the romance in a novel. That may not sound very plausible, but if you look hard enough, patterns emerge. Look for things like, the presence and usage of homosexuality, waiting until marriage, etc. This romance speaks of an author who is young and worried about being too explicit or too offensive and errs on the side of caution. It was sweet and I'm glad that she exercised restraint instead of throwing Wolf and Aralorn into a head-over-heels smoldering romance. However, there were times where the romance might have been too subtle and easily missed by a careless reader. Score- 6.5

Structure: This bothered me a bit because Briggs switched in and out of perspectives using page breaks, a technique that annoys me at the best of times. It's really more personal preference than anything, but it makes it less confusing for me if the author breaks perspectives up by chapters, rather than having a very long chapter with multiple perspectives. Chapter changes allow the reader to fully depart from one perspective and transition into another whereas page breaks can leave the reader stranded, straddling two perspectives and wondering why the story suddenly changed. Also, her transitions were a bit muddled and often I couldn't follow where the story was going or why she had chosen that specific place to break off. Score- 5

Plot: Yes, this was cliched, but when I started the book I didn't expect anything more. If you can accept the cliches and read without being too critical then the book isn't that bad. If you're a stickler for banalities then you'd best steer clear. I mean there have been several iterations of "kill the evil mage". This story didn't bring anything super new to the table. I gave this book the score I did because it didn't irritate me. I wasn't a phenomenal story and there wasn't anything new here. Score- 6

Vervain says: "Aralorn uses 'green magic', which she inherited from her mother. This means she has the ability to shape shift, but not as effectively as if she were full-blooded instead of half human."