Owlsight

This is the second book in the Owl Mage Trilogy. It has been four years since Darian saw his village attacked and fled to the Hawkbrothers. He has bonded with an eagle owl, learned his magic, and is ready to go back to Errold's Grove to see up a vale and act as an ambassador from the Hawkbrothers to the Valdemarans.

Meanwhile, Keisha Alder has taken over duties as healer in Errold's Grove. She tends both the humans and the animals. The area's lord wants to send her to the Healer's collegium, but she knows that there is no one to replace her in Errold's Grove. Besides, she knows that leaving Errold's Grove would be bad for her. She has been trying to learn more about being a healer from books given her by another healer, but she doesn't show more understand everything she reads and needs help.

When Darian and his group get back to Errold's Grove, Keisha has a chance to work with another healer in the new vale and quickly learns about many of the confusing things from the book. She had never learned to create a shield to protect her mind and was in danger of becoming a hermit or going mad with one.

Just as things are settling down, they learn that there is another group of barbarians coming toward Errold's Grove. They have been spotted by the Hawkbrothers' bond birds. This group is different than the group that overran Errold's Grove four years earlier. They have brought along their women and children and their animals too.

The Queen has sent a military force to counter any attack from the new barbarians. The leader of that group joins with the leaders from the vale and the Valdemaran lands to go to meet this oncoming horde and find out what they want.

Keisha who has been learning from the army's healers is along on the trip and is one of the first to learn that this group is following their guiding totem who has promised to find them a new place to live and healers for the debilitating disease they call the summer fever.

The healers all fear that the disease will jump its way to the Valdemaran people who have no built-in immunity to deal with it. And the healer's oath means that they have to try to help these invaders whether or not the military and civilian authorities think it's a good idea.

This was an excellent young adult fantasy. I loved the worldbuilding. I also loved the way the characters, especially Darian and Keisha, handle their coming-of-age journeys. The world is also full of marvelous creatures from griffins to Companions. show less

Read: ~2005
Reread: 1/2/24
While catching up with Darion and seeing how much he has grown into a thoughtful and capable young man in the four years since Owlflight, I found Keisha's arc to be particularly enjoyable. Keisha is almost painfully introverted and she starts to withdraw even more as her half-trained growing Gift starts to make things truly uncomfortable for her. She watches as her best and only friend, her sister, is Chosen and leaves her feeling even more lonely in the village. She finds the courage to point out to her mother that her brothers can help with housekeeping and also steps out on her own finding some peace in her capabilities. As the danger of this installment to the Owl Mage trilogy looms closer and closer only to show more be of a nature they had not expected and which Keisha and Darion step up to help resolve. show less

Honestly, I was very disappointed with this book. The characters were good and the setting interesting and vividly described, but the story was lacking. I found myself waiting almost the entire book for the story to start: nothing exciting, dangerous, even interesting happened the entire first half or more of the book. The primary antagonist of the book was a plague that we knew nothing of until the end, that no main character died of, and that was apparently fairly easily Healed. Only one character was in any immediate danger and none died. Now a book doesn't have to have danger and excitement to be good, but that has always been Lackey's style and is what she excels at. This book was boring and moved at the pace of a snail compared to show more Owlflight, the first book in the series. BIG disappointment. show less

After four years of living and training with the magical Hawkbrothers, Tayledras, Darian becomes a capable Healing Mage. His primary goal is to establish a new vale called k'Valdemar to serve as a peaceful bridge between his adoptive Hawkbrother family and the Valdemarans.

Serving as the sole healer in Errold's Grove following the village wizard's death, Keisha struggles with an untrained empathy-based Gift. Refusing to abandon her village to study at the capital's college, she becomes increasingly overwhelmed by her unshielded empathetic connection to the sick.

Darian and a small contingent of Hawkbrothers return to Errold's Grove to warn the villagers a new horde of northern barbarians is approaching, advising an immediate show more evacuation.

Keisha and a portion of her community refuse to leave, choosing to stand their ground alongside Darian and the Hawkbrothers to protect their homes. The approaching barbarians end up posing a complex threat involving women and children. Through the combined healing prowess, quick thinking, and magic of Darian and Keisha, the community manages to survive the ordeal and negotiate peace. show less

Owlsight is definitely more solid than Owlflight - less drama, more interesting worldbuilding without the tedious flashback-driven backstory. We get a cameo by Kerowyn, and really awkwardly-placed references to the rest of the main Mage Storms characters, which is nice but clumsy, and otherwise it's just a fairly solid YA adventure.

My main gripe with this series is the bizarre-in-context patriarchal assumptions. In a country where there is no sexism at all in the ruling class, it's jarringly out-of-place to have a village where the women cook, clean, and gossip and the men run the place with no comment at all about how that's a little odd. Valdemar was set up from the beginning as an egalitarian society, and I really dislike that those show more principles seem to be ignored here in favor of a dreadfully stereotypical European rural village setup. It makes for better contrast with the Hawkbrothers, I suppose, but that contrast is never actually remarked upon, and I find it tooth-grindingly irritating. show less

Like most of Lackey's middle books, this one is mostly setting up for the climax. We meet Keisha, the Healer of Errold's Grove, and catch up with a much more adult Darian. The new Vale, between Tayledras territory and Valdemar, gets set up - a little faster than intended, as reports of a new barbarian incursion coming down from the North come in. These barbarians, however, turn out to be quite different from the last lot, and (eventually) willing to make peace - partly because what's driving them is a disease, and Keisha and the other healers find out how to deal with it. The book ends on the treaty field, with a lot of loose ends lying about - see previous note about this book being a set-up for the next. Good but not great - a lot of show more interesting people and situations, and some old friends show up, but there's not a lot to the story. The best bits are largely side-issues - Darian's discussion with the local lord's heir about what battle's really like, for instance. Very rich.

Reread - Nice. Darian's grown up, and settled into his Hawkbrother life; new character Keisha is a trainee Healer in Errold's Grove. The village has prospered in the four years since the first book ended. When Darian finally comes back and (with his Hawkbrother friends) begins building k'Valdemar Vale, the two groups are meshing rather well - but there's another group of barbarians coming down from the North. Not an army, this time, but a clan - which is not necessarily better. Lots of juniors making decisions their seniors don't agree with - Darian and Keisha come up with a solution that's well outside the parameters. But it does work out, eventually and after another crisis, and this book ends on a very good note. Next! show less

This, the second book in the saga, sees us back in Errold's Grove four years after Darian had met the hawkbrothers that saved his fellow villagers from the invading Northerners and he is no longer the uncertain teen but a self-assured young man who had come to terms with the magic he had not wanted. As well as Darian, we get to meet the sisters Keisha and Shandi Alderman, one of whom was the village healer while the other was destined to become a Herald while a new danger threatens from the North!

The characters are good and, while Darian is often too good to be true, Keisha, the apprentice healer is brilliant.