Review: Mindhealer

Mindhealer by Lilith Saintcrow

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Witches aka lightbringers who avoid and don't want their own personal watcher just flummoxes me.  Caro Robbins is a strong Mindhealer, probably stronger than any other.  She carries more baggage than any of the other lightbringers to date.  She purposely places herself in danger because she doesn't want another Watcher to die for her.  The stupidity in her reasoning is beyond me. 

Ms. Saintcrow writes females with no middle ground.  Either they are kick ass and can take care of themselves and everyone else, or they are completely bumbling idiots.  Guess which one Caro resembles?  Bingo - idiot and not an idiot savant.  Caro stubbornly believes she can go out and about, avoid the dark Seekers and basically everything evil that wants to devour her.  Not sure how her logic works, but apparently, she thinks she won't attract them despite all evidence.  The poor schlep who is Caro's "one" is Merrick.  The only way Merrick can stop the pain and become more than a Watcher is if he finds his own witch - the witch whose touch won't hurt.  The other half of him… and it's demented Caro the mindhealer. Caro does just about everything she can to kill herself and take Merrick with her.  She's foolhardy, impulsive and in need of a good spanking.  Merrick needs to forget the rules and take Caro in hand because she doesn't need a watcher, she needs a minder.  I felt bad for Merrick the entire story as Caro is the epitome of a high maintenance girlfriend.  She's irrational and wants everything her way.

Despite my disgust with Caro, the story line is interesting.  What Merrick figures out despite Caro's unintentional sabotage, creates a whole new set of problems for Circle Lightfall.  Trying to figure out how these religious nuts who work with demons will make the world a better place is mind boggling.  It is as if these psychotic men only read "Thou shalt not suffer a witch" and ignored everything else.  The new demon spawns created in this book is disturbing.  Caro does do a good job of showing compassion and a willingness to sacrifice in order to find out what is causing these people to die.  This is the only redeeming quality to Caro.


This book moves at a rather slow pace.  There are some scenes which are drawn out to set up the next scene.  The action occurs in intense spurts which actual works out well.  The descriptions are solid as readers can clearly visualize places, buildings and characters.  Ms. Saintcrow writes a good story to keep a reader's attention.  Sometimes her characters are a bit weak and this is one story where the main character is definitely not to my taste.  Recommended for magic readers who enjoy good battling evil themes.

*provided by NetGalley



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