Skin Hunger - 9780689840937

Sadima lives in a world where magic has been banned, leaving poor villagers

prey to fakes and charlatans. A "magician" stole her family's few valuables and

left Sadima's mother to die on the day Sadima was born. But vestiges of magic

are hidden in old rhymes and hearth tales and in people like Sadima, who

conceals her silent communication with animals for fear of rejection and

ridicule. When rumors of her gift reach Somiss, a young nobleman obsessed with

restoring magic, he sends Franklin, his lifelong servant, to find her. Sadima's

joy at sharing her secret becomes love for the man she shares it with. But

Franklin's irrevocable bond to the brilliant and dangerous Somiss traps her,

too, and she faces a heartbreaking decision.

Centuries later magic has been restored, but it is available only to the

wealthy and is strictly controlled by wizards within a sequestered academy of

magic. Hahp, the expendable second son of a rich merchant, is forced into the

academy and finds himself paired with Gerrard, a peasant boy inexplicably

admitted with nine sons of privilege and wealth. Only one of the ten students

will graduate -- and the first academic requirement is survival.

Sadima's and Hahp's worlds are separated by generations, but their lives are

connected in surprising and powerful ways in this brilliant first book of

Kathleen Duey's dark, complex, and completely compelling trilogy.