Changespell Legacy

Changespell Saga #3

by Doranna Durgin

Dun Lady’s Jess--all horse, all woman, all he...and the only one left who can save her disintegrating world from magic gone awry.

Genres: Fantasy, Horses, Romance

448 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Doranna Durgin is an award-winning author (the Compton Crook for Best First SF/F/H novel) whose quirky spirit has led to an extensive and eclectic publishing journey across genres, publishers, and publishing lines. Beyond that, she hangs around outside her Southwest mountain home with horse and highly accomplished competition dogs. She doesn't believe in mastering the beast within, but in channeling its power--for good or bad has yet to be decided! She says, “My books are SF/F, mystery, paranormal romance, & romantic suspense. My world is the Southwest, and my dogs are Beagles!”

Doranna’s most recent releases encompass the three books of the Reckoners trilogy--a powerful ghostbuster raised by a spirit, her brilliantly eccentric backup team, a cat who isn't a cat, and a fiercely driven bounty hunter from a different dimension who brings them together when worlds collide.

Reviews

[Lael Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

[Tim Bowie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book brings to a close the fascinating and engaging tale of Dun Lady's Jess. Ms. Durgin expertly crafts the world of Camolen as a dimension parallel to earth, but where magic does all the work instead of machines. Changespell Legacy brings all of the earth characters together with Camolen's champions to try an discover what has damaged magic on Camolen, killed the wizard council, and threatens to destroy Camolen itself. I highly recommend this series to anyone who loves fantasy and science fiction. The romance aspect is not the driving force of the series, though it does play an integral part in the overall story.

[Lora Shouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series. Changespell Legacy seems to be a little darker than the first two books, even without obviously malevolent wizards. But it is just as amazing.

In the first two books of The Changespell Saga, the danger to Camolen and its magic comes from rogue wizards – first from the power-hungry Calandre, and then from Calandre’s equally power-hungry and also vengeful apprentice, Willand assisted by a group of lesser wizards under the influence of a drug known as mage-lure.

This time it’s worse. All the magic in Camolen seems to be disintegrating. And when the wizards of the Council go to one of the problem sites to investigate, they are killed. The only witness to this is a horse.

Everybody thinks Arlen died with the wizards of the Council, but he was actually in another part of the country investigating another problem site at the time. As magic is becoming unstable and dangerous to use, he is having to travel back to Anfeald the old-fashioned way – by coach or horseback. And when he is unaccountably attacked and poisoned in one of the first towns he passes through, even that turns out to be dangerous.

Dayna, Carey, Jess, and a new hire at the Anfeald stables, a girl named Suliya, decide it is necessary to talk to the horse who saw the Council die. The only way they can do this is to use the world-travel spell to take him to Ohio, a process that turns him into a human. There he fares worse, in some ways, than Jess did on her first trip.

And things don’t go well in other respects either. The group from Camolen encounters a group of people who seem to be wizards, and who want to kill them. The attempt to use the horse to get information causes a rift between Jess and Carey. And, worst of all, when the horse decides to talk, he can’t tell them much they didn’t already know or at least suspect. On top of everything, they are losing contact with Jamie, who is staying in Anfeald, as Camolen’s magic gets more and more corrupted.

But this time the cause proves not to be some overtly evil wizards. It’s industrial magic gone wrong, and the people who are responsible not acting responsibly, making things worse.

So, can this magical country be saved? Will everyone make it home again? And can Jess and Carey overcome their differences this time?

[Kat W · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I had fun with this series overall and this was a moderately decent conclusion to the Changespell Saga, but this was not the third book I had been hoping for. I appreciated how serious Durgin made out the situation in the magical realm of Camolen, a believable scenario and well paralleled to Earth situations, the drama between Cary and Jess was driving me craaazzzy and I hated Suliya's guts to the end. Dayna also redeemed her arsehole behavior, which did her no favors. Jaime has always been on my iffy list... For some reason, the women in these books are really hard for me to like. Probably because they often come off as very self-righteous and entitled and beat up on the men, namely Cary, Mark, and poor Eric (All the men in this series were mostly nice and you could see where they were coming from. The women...kinda lost me and as a woman, it's disappointing to not like the female characters!). I imagine in reality these women would be starting lots of arguments in reality.

Lastly, Durgin has this habit where she rushes her endings. This was present in the previous books, but I let it go because there were subsequent books. Unfortunately, this last book rushes through its ending as much as the others making for an unsatisfying conclusion.

After thoughts Also, unfortunately, Dayna and Jaime never quite managed to find a place in my heart throughout this entire series. By the second book, Jess was beginning to grate, and by this book she just fell out of my favor completely. Why? Because she realized how different humans and horses can think, truly realized, and gave Cary a hard time for it by throwing ultimatums at him. I can't really justify my anger at her, which is frustrating, because I'd be accused of being human-supremacist. Jess was okay for a time, but then she went nutso in this book in my opinion. I get that it's her horse-self clashing with human values/understanding, but what the heck is this stuff about Jess coming to Cary in the beginning and then him going to her? He went to her. Twice! Cary, you pushover. I honestly felt sorry for Cary and his complicated relationship with Jess. And then there was Suliya. A very useless character who had to have a man die for a cause to get her to realize she needs to act less spoiled... She never really grows and is petty to the end because you never see her change. Oh, and then the way it ends... Basically Jess gets a free pass for her unfaithful behavior because she's a horse and in her mind humans are the ones who keep one partner. I ended this series not believing Cary and Jess would work out in the long run. I am giving this 3 stars because the tension and flow of the story was exciting and kept me on my toes. Durgin also has a good way with putting you in the mind of the horse, though I questioned the truth of that at times. Still, ultimately, I wish I had stopped at the second book.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was frustrating in a lot of ways, but it all made sense because the conflict was so huge. I guess I prefer my books a little less stressful! lol It was still a very good story and the characters grew in ways that fit.

[Manatee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe I rated this one less because I didn't want the trilogy to end... there is still too much happening and I don't want to leave it amidst so much turmoil.

[Perry Hudkins]

Enjoyed the entire series quite alot.

[Lynn Calvin]

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