Healer's Awakening – David Hochhalter (David Hochhalter & Tom Crepeau)

“Wandmaking 101” and “Wandmaking 201” were excellent, and I’ve been waiting for the sequel - not realizing that, rather than immediately go to “Wandmaking 301”, the authors followed up with other books placed in the same milieu and focusing on other characters.

Petra is a minor character who makes a couple of appearances in “Wandmaking 201”. She is introduced as having “little education and no prospects”, and as having joined the Great Forest Clan as her best alternative. In the ‘Petra’ trilogy she is retconned to have had better education, better prospects, and considerable agency.

Petra is the first major protagonist in the Avalon books who lacks magic. Through sheer ability and character, starting when she is quite young, she finds herself in a position of leadership. (Petra is pretty-nearly the only major character in these books who lacks magic.) From a world-building perspective, Petra’s story focuses on Avalon rather than Earth. It also runs parallel with the Wandmaking books - demonstrating that parallel story lines sometimes meet.

Is the book worth reading? Yes, but it will work better for readers who read the Wandmaking books first. (Again, the Wandmaking books are excellent young-adult fiction. If you haven’t read them, don’t be scared off by the badly-chosen cover art that conveys ‘children’s book’.)