THE TETHERED MAGE is filled with traitors slithering through its pages and nothing is ever what one says. With several players, some bold faced and others pulling the strings out of sight, in this game of dominion, there is a constant strum of unrest, desperation, determination, and all set to the ticking of a clock. While Zaira refuses loyalty to her captors and Amalia desperately searches for a solution of peace, their enemies have great plans set into motion and are not at all concerned about getting a bit of blood on their hands. As the plot escalates, will true enemies be unveiled? Or will fire turn them all into naught but ashes?
-pooled ink Reviews

I loved this book! The characters were well-developed and interesting. The twist on magic was interesting and provocative.

1.5 stars.

*

The Tethered Mage is not what it seems while still literally encompassing everything its title implies. With a good dramatic - and explosive - start, a slow yet steady pace, and good writing, this novel delivers fails to deliver a compelling story. Instead, it has one-dimensional characters, instalove, and underdeveloped world-building.

Melissa Caruso has a lot of potential as a writer. The main concept of this book is a really interesting one, if going by the summary, but the execution fails at making it interesting. There are a lot of politics and little action, almost no character development, and the twists lack impact. Also, the main fuel behind the plot makes me, as a reader, super uncomfortable.

Once again, the writing in this is good! It flows smoothly, the pace holds steady, and it doesn’t feel chopped or awkward at all. The opening scene is actually great, as it captures the reader’s attention and hooks you right in. It promises a good and engaging story. Sadly, it does not deliver that.

I have to admit, I was super excited to start this one. The summary sounds really interesting and caught my attention right away, as well as the beautiful cover. So I have to admit I was rather confused when I started reading the book. The entire story is told in only one single POV: Lady Amalia’s. Despite the summary (and the title, really) making it seem like the book focuses both on Zaira and Amalia, that is not true. Amalia is very much the central character, with Zaira being a secondary one.

My main problem with The Tethered Mage has to do with her. It is also why the novel made me super uncomfortable. There is no other way to say it: Amalia captures Zaira and becomes her owner. This is where the title comes into play. Zaira is legit forced to wear a tether, like an animal, and can’t go places without Amalia - aka The Tethered Mage. The author actually goes ahead to say that Zaira isn’t forced to do anything Amalia tells her to, but when Amalia is solely in control of Zaira’s powers and Zaira doesn’t have the autonomy to leave and go live her own life as she wishes to? Well…

There is also a bit of romance in between the politics, although it is not very well-developed. The main focus of the novel is on politics, and there are a lot of royals scheming and kingdoms trying to star wars. Because the pace is rather slow, this only serves to drag the plot along.

In the end, The Tethered Mage rubs me the wrong way. It is definitely not what I expected, but not in a good way. The writing was engaging, but the characters lacked depth and the overall plot did not hold my attention.

I love the progression of the main character, and her determination to do what is right. She recognizes her weaknesses and strengths, and she expertly maneuvers through out situations. I look forward to the sequel.

Zaira, is a fire warlock who doesn't know how to control its power. So Amalia was pushed to use a jess to prevent burning the whole city by its balefire.

Alongside, they tried to worked it because of the tether of being a Falcon and Falconer but they never expected a bigger dilemma along the way, missing children and a wage of war.

Tethered Mage is a hell of a ride. I thought I will never liked it because half of the book is all about the empire, the enemy of the empire and some political matters which matters in the story. There are parts that is boring but the last 30% parts of the book is LIT! I loved it!


SIDELINE:
At the end of the story, even though it doesn't come to that fact, I thought about CHILD TRAFFICKING and it is worse. Let us help to our community against slavery, child labor and trauma.

Full review at the link below.

I will say I received really liked the cover that's what caught my attention but as far as the book itself I was pretty frustrated with how bland the book was I had to really push through five chapters before throwing in the towel this book just simple didn't catch my attention.

DNF

I tried. I actually went into this book with high hopes as I loved the synopsis, but I couldn't get over the bland main character & slow plot. (Also, I'm tired of YAs forcing romances in every fantasy & having the girl be a blushing innocent.)

After Amalia accidentally links herself to a fire mage, she's tasked with "training" her mage all the while keeping up appearances as a politicians daughter. This sounds exciting. But it was so slow and boring. Amalia (and all the characters really) are very one dimensional and I didn't care about any of them.

I will say that the writing itself is good. I would easily pick up another book by this author in the future, however this one just missed the mark.

Intriguing premise, poor execution.

Zaira is a fire-mage who can decimate a whole city with her power. Amalia is the heir of Raverra who accidentally becomes the Falconer of Zaria to prevent her from burning down the city. Now, Zaira can only unleash her power when Amalia utters the release word. Zaira is taken to the island of Mews where other Falcons and Falconers reside. Lieutenant Marcello Verdi is a top Falconer and an accomplished soldier at the Mews. Ardence, another state in Eruvia is on the verge of a rebellion provoked by its disgruntled nobility and the covert support of the Witch-Lords of Vaskandar. Most of the story follows the three main characters trying to wade through the conspiracy, find the traitors and prevent the war – basically to stop Zaira from having to burn down Ardence for its rebellion.

The story is enjoyable enough. I liked the growth of Amalia’s character from a studious reluctant heir to being able to use her diplomatic skills for good use. Marcello is a loyal soldier who believes the best of his superiors. I especially enjoyed their time together, trying to navigate their attraction in spite of the difference in ranks. There is a lot of courtly intrigue and back stabbing and conspiracies that made for a engaging read. My most problem was with Zaira. Obviously she doesn’t like being taken to the Mews against her will but her character is way too angry and rude to even understand the bigger picture. I am sure there will be more to her in the coming books because she is the only fire-mage but I really didn’t like her in this. Overall, it’s an enjoyable YA fantasy read and hopefully the series will get better.

I had a great time with this book! There was never a point that is was boring, at least not to me. =)

**Maybe some minor spoilers**

Amalia Cornaro is out one evening getting a rare book when she runs into a fire mage and a Falconer.

Zaira has been in hiding all of these years because she doesn't want to be a slave to the city. She has lived in some horrible situations as a result.

Amalia was trying to save her from some ruffians when she set off her fire and was on the brink of burning the town down. These mages can lose control and kill everything. The Falconer that was there asked Amalia to put a jest (was it called a jest?) on her wrist to stop her powers.

Little did Amalia know, this was going to change her life forever. Once someone puts the bracelet on, they are bound to the mage and said person is now a Falconer. It's almost like having a real falcon in captivity. They have these people in their army of course. They get taken at birth and put into a special place to learn with a Falconer. They are treated like little kings and queens but they aren't free. Most Falconers let them free for a good amount of time but they have to always be watched because some of these mages have accidentally killed their parents and others as children. It's pretty sad all the way around. Everyone is trying to do the right thing. Well, accept the idiot that uses them for war, but most of them are happy.

Amalia's mom isn't too happy with this situation. Amalia is to be heir to her mother's throne and her mother is a force to be reckoned with, seems like all of the other higher ups are terrified of her.

Amalia can't live with the Falconer's for this reason so she visits Zaira and tries to do everything she can to make her happy. She doesn't like the situation they are in and just wants to do what she can.

I loved Zaira, she was funny and well, she had her problems. And she loved a dog =)

Anyway, the Falconer that Amalia had run into that night is named Marcello and I just fell in love with him. So did some other people =)

There is a lot of political garbage going on in the book. Everyone pretty much wants to kill everyone else and take over.

Amalia, Zaira and Marcello are put into some really tough situations but they all did good for the most part. I wanted to smack them a few times but I digress. Zaira wanted to set everyone on fire which she was allowed to do at times. =)

Oh and Marcello also has sister that's a mage. She hit it off with Amalia because they were both book lovers and inventors etc. I loved her too =)

I loved these characters and they had me freaking stressed out at times but it all worked out, mostly. There are other side characters in the book that were evil and awesome in equal parts.

I am looking forward to reading the next book!

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book.*

Unfortunately this is going to be a DNF. I'm about 40% in and gosh, it's so boring. I liked the idea behind the story, but nothing has happened. There's a lot of talk, political machinations - or talk of it - and I just don't care about any of the characters. Thanks to NetGalley for sending me a copy of this to review.

Review also posted at Writings of a Reader

The Tethered Mage is a debut novel which will be released in October. The main characters are Amalia, a noble lady and heir to an extremely influential government position, and Zaira, a fire warlock with the power to destroy entire cities with her magic. Amalia accidentally shackles Zaira, becoming the controller of her magic. Zaira is not only angry that she's been basically enslaved, but is now used as a threat to enemy states - and Amalia is the one with the key to her magic.

I was very excited when I thought The Tethered Mage was going to be about female relationships and friendships. The premise is fascinating - Amalia becomes a slave-master by mistake, and must befriend her conscript for the good of her family and her nation. Zaira has spent her whole life evading capture, and with her seizure becomes little more than a weapon, and an involuntary one.

This is deep stuff. The premise of this book is slavery, and how it affects two young women - that's an incredible concept.

So I was disappointed when the book became bigger than the two main characters. The relationship between Zaira and Amalia does not get the time I believe it deserves, and Zaira's inevitable softening toward Amalia feels unearned and out of character. The moral issues are addressed, but only lightly, and most characters in the world support the practice of tethering mages.

But Caruso is going for something epic here, and I can appreciate that; she's aiming for a story bigger than two women. She's built quite a sprawling world, and I am excited to read more (and see those two women kick more ass).

Nevertheless, I maintain that The Tethered Mage would have been better as a second book. We could have spent an entire first novel building relationships - primarily between Amalia and Zaira, but also between those two and the numerous side characters. I want a more convincing love story. I want deeper familial tension. I want more back story and a slower build up. Most of all, I want to be absolutely enthralled, at every moment, with the relationship between Zaira and Amalia. Instead, their relationship felt flat at almost all times, and progressed quite unconvincingly. One literally controls the other! There is so much potential there - I want to read about it!

Like I said, I did enjoy this book, and I'll continue with the series. But it went a direction I would not have chosen, and skipped over what I considered the most important and interesting parts of the story.

I enjoyed reading this book. It was a very interesting fantasy set in a period similar to Renaissance Venice. The main character Amalia was a strong heroine and her journey from scholarly introvert to the throne into somehow who takes control of her own fate while working to save her home kept me entertained. I also liked the relationship between Amalia and Marcello.
I do feel as though the book stared off with a bang and really drew me in, and then it began to slow way down and got a little hard to really get through. I considered not finishing because I became mired down with all the court intrigue and politics and missed the action of the bond that should be developing between Amalia and Zaira. I think the author missed an opportunity to have the reader really invest in their blossoming bond by having their "training sessions" off the page. Some of the friendships that Zaira had were also not described as well as they could have been. The story did pick back up again about half-way or two-thirds through and got very exciting.
I also wish we had a little more from Zaira's point-of-view. She is such a dynamic character with a mysterious past and I really felt like there was a hole where more information from or about Zaira would have really been useful and satisfying.
Overall I would recommend this book. The ending was just right--there was enough closure and completion to make the reader feel as though the story had ended while still leaving just enough open-ended to lead into a Book Two. I enjoyed the book and would like to read the next installment.

Every once in awhile, someone who has extensive knowledge about the Young Adult Fantasy genre decides to request, read, and review a yet-to-be-released book representative of that knowledge.  ... That is not that what's happening here.
I rarely read Young Adult Fantasy. And I couldn't tell you what elements, devices, characteristics, themes, or styles are used widely throughout it. So, it was a great idea for me to request this book, yeah?
The first quarter of the book.... WIN!
The last quarter of the book.... WIN!
The middle of the book.... needs to work out in the offseason and come back next year for a shot at the championship.
Seriously, I was really into this book as I was learning about the Serene Empire and the mage-marked. I loved Amalia and Zaira both! I even developed a soft spot for hard ass La Contessa. And then the bottom dropped out.
This book is loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong. Longer than the majority of books that I have read lately and unfortunately, its long-ness was only amplified by the fact that it got pretty slow and boring in the middle.
Instead of playing with the fire warlock a little or starting a war, invading a country perhaps, the characters in this book spent most of their time strategizing and looking at maps. Don't get me wrong, it was important information, but it was just that. Information. I longed for an action-driven story the whole way through.
My Favorite Little Detail:
The poison. Amalia was poisoned when she was younger in a supposed assassination attempt. The poison stays in her system for the rest of her life and if she doesn't continuously ingest timed doses of antidote, it will still kill her.
Awesome.

Amalia Cornaro is heir to a great family name, wealth, and untold political influence within the Raverran Empire. However, she has been content to leave most of the political machinations to her brilliant and ruthless mother, and concentrate on her studies of arcane magic. However, when a powerful fire warlock threatens the city of Raverra, Amalia finds herself drafted into containing the warlock’s magic, and in so doing inadvertently becomes a “Falconer”, tethered to the fire warlock and responsible for controlling her powers. Thrown into the middle of a political firestorm (couldn’t help myself), Amalia must use everything her mother ever taught her to prevent a civil war within the empire she loves.

This was an enormously fun fantasy novel, and is the first in the new series. Surprisingly, this is also Melissa Caruso’s debut novel. The story, while ostensibly YA, manages to avoid the pitfalls so common in the genre, and delivers an entertaining and suspenseful read. Caruso has built up an interesting and complex world, and her characters are lovingly crafted and more complex than one usually sees in the Young Adult genre. The book reminded me very much of Dragon Age, the Bioware RPG game (which from me is a huge compliment). I especially enjoyed the way magic is dealt with in Caruso’s world, and the push and pull between Amalia, and her “Falcon”, Zaira.

Fans of YA or the fantasy genre looking for a bright new talent should definitely pick up this book.

An advance copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely looked this book!!!! I couldn't put it down from the first chapter. I wished amilia acted like she liked Lieutenant Verdi more. Very well written.

The Tethered Mage is the debut novel of Melissa Caruso and is the first book in the Swords and Fire trilogy. This book is truly a great way to start a new series. The author has built a wonderful magical world full of intrigue and characters to die for.

Lady Amalia Cornaro just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She is the Cornaro heir and will one day take her mother’s place on the Council of Nine. Therefore, when she inadvertently binds a young fire warlock to herself while trying to aid her it goes against all convention. The Empire does not allow a member of the council to be a Falconer for this could tip the balance of power.

Unfortunately the magical bracelet, called a jess, that controls and bids Zaira, the fire warlock, to Amalia is fused shut and can’t be removed. Leaving both young women with an outcome neither of them wanted. They will each have to come to terms with the price of their actions and together learn to trust one another, not only as friends but as Falcon and Falconer, because there are powerful forces stirring both within and outside of The Empire. As these forces seek to over throw The Empire, Amalia and Zaira will be needed to restore calm and insure peace.

I so love good fantasy and The Tethered Mage definitely falls into that category. The author really thought through how a society that contained powerful mages might work. This attention to detail is the best part of the story. We also see it in the characters and plot as well. Ms. Caruso weaved her own kind of magic to draw the reader into the story and she keeps them enthralled with her creative plot twists and careful world building. I cannot find fault with any aspect of this book.

Not only is the book a great fantasy novel but it is also a thoughtful coming-of-age story. I highly recommend this to all loves of Fantasy and to those readers who enjoy young adult stories with strong female characters.

I received an ARC from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.

For more of my reviews, and author interviews, see my blog at www.thespineview.com.

This book wasn't terrible. It started out well, but around the halfway point it slowed down a lot making it a tough read to finish.

The two main characters had an interesting dynamic. The hate/hate relationship was fun to read. The main characters powers were pretty useless for me. The fact that she needs to use someone else's magic to access them was pretty frustrating.

Overall, this book was honestly forgettable for me.

Zaira has reached adulthood without notice of her magic that is regulated. Amalia, rich, ruling class, slumming to purchase a book unnoticed, stumbles upon Zaira being attacked. This meeting forever changes both their lives. Superb epic "medieval" fantasy that rivals Sarah Maas' novels. Rarely is there a book where "I did not see that coming" is my quote. Full of mystery and suspense, political machinations to the nth degree, exceptional characters, great dialog and worldbuilding. A thrilling page turner. I voluntarily reviewed an ARC from Netgalley.

The Tethered Mage is the first book in a series, set in a world where magic is scarce, and those who wield the power are tightly controlled by the ruler of the land. They are known as falcons, and when their talents are discovered they are bound to someone who is able to control their use of magic – a Falconer.

The main character of the novel is a young noblewoman who is busy going about her stereotypically air-headed lifestyle when she is rudely interrupted by a fire warlock attempting to burn the city to the ground. Of course, she is doing it in self-defence, but that seems an unnecessarily violent way of going about it, so our erstwhile heroine tethers the warlock, and thus begins a hate-hate relationship between them as they each learn to control their abilities.

There is a whole lot of courtly intrigue, and pomp and circumstance in this novel, which really isn’t my thing, and I felt that it dragged out unnecessarily as a result. The author has some interesting ideas, but so much of the tension seems thoroughly contrived as a result of the magic system that is used in the book. I found the main character quite useless, as most of her power is derived from her access to someone else’s power – either from being the heir to a noble house, or from her Falcon’s magical abilities. She has relationships and friendships with a lot of other characters in the novel, but mostly she seems to drift through it as a spectator on this journey.

Zaira – the Falcon in question – on the other hand was a much more interesting character for me, and although we do get to learn a lot more about her backstory, I would rather have had her as the main character. But that wouldn’t work because of the contrivances of the magic and or the governance system.

At the end of the day, I just felt like this was a pretty forgettable novel that took far too long to go basically nowhere. There is some sort of phoney war going on, but not as you’d really know it based on the more romantic elements the author chooses to spend most of her time on. I would need to find some very strong reasons to go and read the others in the series.

This was a wild ride, and I really want to buy this book. It's a fun, quick read that are filled with amazing realistic characters and a long plot filled with action, romance, magic, and missing children.

I read this so fast that I am going to read it again! I know that I missed a few things, and so want to write a proper review without spoiling too much.

I will say that those who like Throne of Glass by Sarah J Mass will love this story!