Review: Desecration (Wizard Queen at Sixteen)

Desecration (Wizard Queen at Sixteen Series) by Hadley Holt
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Release Date: March 12, 2014
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

In a hidden world of wizards where only men hold the power of magic, one girl arises with the power to change everything, if she isn’t killed first…

Adriana Victoriana Evangelista (Addie), daughter to the High Chancellor of the Wizard’s Council, has always been the perfect wizard girl. She never questions why men possess magical powers and women have no power at all, magical or otherwise. Male wizards blend into the modern human world, leading huge corporations while wizard women are sequestered away.

On her sixteenth birthday, Addie discovers she possesses magic. Under wizard law, she is a desecration. An ancient prophecy surrounds the emergence of a girl magic-wielder, the wizard queen, who is destined to bring about the downfall of the wizard-kin.

Addie has long had a forbidden crush on a human boy who lives in the wizard stronghold, Rory Devlin. As she delves deeper into the dangerous mysteries surrounding her own destiny, she suspects Rory might be more than just human.

Addie’s fate sends her straight into the path of a powerful and evil sorcerer, but the worst danger of all may come from right inside her own home.

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"Desecration" by Hadley Holt had me hooked pretty early on. Right away you could tell that this was going to be a book about an interesting female in a world where females don't get a lot of say in what goes on, and that she might be out to change that.

This is a book about wizards and a secret world that coexists with our non-magical one. In "Desecration,” the magic users live in secret from the "norms,” and have their own way of running things. Women are not allowed to practice magic and it's a society that relies heavily on the men's power and protection. These men even rise to top positions in the "norm" world.

They have all of this influence whereas, for the most part, women are just meant to be party planners and wizard breeders. Women even have to go as far as wearing cloaks over their clothes while out in public so that they're bodies don't "distract" the all important male wizards (gag me).


Our main character in this series is Addie, who discovers that she has powers on her 16th birthday, even though the fact that she's a girl should mean that that's impossible for her. She soon realizes that there is a lot more for her to deal with than just the powers, and that she's more important to her magical world than she ever imagined.

I liked the character of Addie. At first, she is thrown by all of this power and responsibility that manifests itself to her, but slowly she learns to accept the challenges that lie ahead. Being a girl, she has always been looked over her entire life as being unimportant and always coming in second to her twin brother, and this is the time for her to shine and become her own person. Slowly, Addie realizes how unjust her society is toward women, and wants to learn more about her burgeoning power so she can throw off her cloak and finally be counted.

One of the only flaws that I saw in "Desecration" was that the ending seemed a bit abrupt. I would have liked more of a resolution than what I was given, so that things could have been tied up a bit more. I get that this is the first book in a series, and that Holt is building up toward future books involving Addie and the wizards, but some things still could have been handled differently in this start up book.

Even with the abrupt ending, I would recommend "Desecration.” The story is clever and well written, and I look forward to reading whatever Holt has in mind for Addie next. I'm intrigued to see what the fallout of Addie's powers and actions are going to be within the wizard community as well as the reaction she'll get from her own home.

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Author Bio:

Hadley Holt, author of paranormal, and fantasy YA (Young Adult) has always loved to write. She also nurtures an incurable fascination with all things supernatural and fantastical. From a young age, she imagined stories about dragons, wizards, witches, ghosts, shape-shifters, vampires, and other magical creatures.

As life often does, it blessed Hadley with family - a hunky husband and amazing children, and with family came a rewarding career. Hadley spent many years in the not-so-magical world of finance and mortgage banking, but the stories were always there in the back of her mind, demanding to be set free.

Thanks to the housing market crash, Hadley finally realized her dreams. She now breathes life into her magical tales of reluctant young heroes finding their inner power to stand up against terrible creatures and even more terrible odds.

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