I just finished Luminous yesterday and it was a great read, a interesting magic system. High stakes, likable main characters that grew throughout the book, evil villain with layers, and good resolution. It’s definitely one of my favorite books of the year because of the storyline.

Luminous

Summary

From the author of Crown of Coral and Pearl comes an immersive new fantasy about a witch who must learn to harness her power—or risk losing her loved ones forever.

Liora has spent her life in hiding, knowing discovery could mean falling prey to the king’s warlock, Darius, who uses mages’ magic to grow his own power. But when her worst nightmare comes to pass, Darius doesn’t take her. Instead, he demands that her younger sister return to the capital with him. To make matters worse, Evran, Liora’s childhood friend and the only one who knows her secret, goes missing following Darius’s visit, leaving her without anyone to turn to.

To find Evran and to save her sister, Liora must embrace the power she has always feared. But the greatest danger she’ll face is yet to come, for Darius has plans in motion that will cause the world to fall into chaos—and Liora and Evran may be the only ones who can stop him.

Review

The author makes a lush and unique fantasy world that I want to spend time in as a reader, not as person because there is a evil leader going on but there are interesting characters I want get to know and that I do get to spend time with throughout the book and get to watch them grow and change. Even the villain, who is evil, isn’t one dimensional.

I also love Liora’s powers, they aren’t like anything I’ve seen in other books, so I have to give Mara Rutherford points for creativity. Everan’s powers are pretty unusual to so it’s nice to see something other than stock powers in a book.

I also love Everan’s mom and her power, and even the villain’s power is interesting, what I think I’m saying is really like the magical system.

You should totally read Luminous it’s a 5 star read and even though it wasn’t a quick read I really enjoyed it.

Amazon: Luminous