The Prison Healer - by Lynette Noni

Title:             The Prison Healer

Author:        Lynette Noni

Published:  30 March, 2021

Series:          The Prison Healer #1

Rating:         4 stars

Synopsis:

Seventeen-year-old Kiva Meridan has spent the last ten years fighting for survival in the notorious death prison, Zalindov, working as the prison healer.
When the Rebel Queen is captured, Kiva is charged with keeping the terminally ill woman alive long enough for her to undergo the Trial by Ordeal: a series of elemental challenges against the torments of air, fire, water, and earth, assigned to only the most dangerous of criminals.
Then a coded message from Kiva’s family arrives, containing a single order: “Don’t let her die. We are coming.” Aware that the Trials will kill the sickly queen, Kiva risks her own life to volunteer in her place. If she succeeds, both she and the queen will be granted their freedom. But no one has ever survived. With an incurable plague sweeping Zalindov, a mysterious new inmate fighting for Kiva’s heart, and a prison rebellion brewing, Kiva can’t escape the terrible feeling that her trials have only just begun.

I managed to read an early copy of this book from work and wanted to give it an honest, spoiler-free review.

All thoughts and opinions regarding this book are solely my own.

Our Characters:

Kiva: our main character who has seen Some Things in her lifetime.

Jaren: our main man who has also seen Some Things in his life but somehow remains positive.

Naari: our guard who seems to be nicer than the rest.

Tipp: our little cinnamon roll and my favourite character just for being the littler of sunshine that he is!

I loved Jaren's humour and I also love how natural the amputee, stutter and blindness are when they're mentioned in the story; they don't seem as if they're forced in just for the sake of being in the story. Also the casual mention of someone being gay and the other main characters not even making a fuss about it.

One thing I picked up on though, was how tunnel fever reminded me of back at the start of the coronavirus pandemic; how easily it was spreading and the precautions you had to take if you dealt with someone with the virus so you also didn't become infected.

I did like how when you look at the side of the book at the pages you can see two blacked out parts of pages which makes it interesting as you don't know what that's about until you get there and when you get to that point in the book, it makes total sense why they're blacked out.

One point reminded me of something I've read at some stage though -- how some prisoner's in real life somewhere are allowed to look after shelter cats in the prison and it helps not only the prisoners, but also the cats as both parties learn to love and trust again. The prison cat in The Prison Healer named Boots reminds me of that and I really like that it was mentioned.

There was something I wasn't really fond of in the book though which was how often something like "Those five words were..." was said. It just became little repetitive over time, but it didn't detract from the story which was good.

However the final chapter was shocking with what it revealed! It probably didn't help that I had to stop with only three pages left at one stage as I'd had something on a timer. I also later figured out that I'd already called what was going to happen, but it was still a shock to the system. But oh my goodness, I seriously can't wait for the second book in this series to come out! I need to know what happens next!

"What about Your Highness?"

He pulled a face. "Definitely not." 

"Your Grace?" 

"I'm not a duke." 

"Your Excellency?" 

"Nor a lord." 

"Your Majesty?" 

"Please stop."

__________________________________________________

All books in this series:

    1 | The Prison Healer
    2 | The Gilded Cage