Word and Breath (Wordless Chronicles) [Kindle Edition]

Riana is twenty-two, raising her disabled sister, Jannie, and a Reader. She lives in a world where the Union is the government and when it is rare to have the ability to read. Since Riana was taught at her grandfather's knee, not only to read but also in the old language, she has value. She works in the Reader's office, reading old papers, looking for anomalies.

The Front would rather be Free and not take orders from the Union. They are led by the Librarian, a man who sends his orders and other important information, through old letters, cards and whatnot. He's watched Riana closely for three years now, but doesn't want her involved with the Front. However, that decision is about to be irrevocably changed.

Mikel is a Breather. He has the capability of sensing emotions and taking memories through touch. The person he is touching must be a willing partner for it to work, or they could go insane. He's the best of the best and he's been hired by the Union to locate Riana, make her trust him and get the information his boss desires.

When Riana's sister is kidnapped, things begin to heat up. Her inquiries though soon put her own life at risk, as well as others trying to help her. Mikel can help her, if she can learn to trust him. Also, the Librarian's main priority is the Front, but he can't help but want to protect Riana too. But he and Mikel struggle for control whenever she is around. Between the Front, the Union, the two men in her life, and a new sense of purpose, Riana isn't sure what to do. She just knows she will do anything to get her sister back.

Word and Breath is a fantastic dystopian fantasy that captured me from page one. The world-building is unique and complex. The characters are well-developed and heavily layered. While some characters I liked and disliked, my opinion changed of others as their character developed in the story. I am definitely looking forward to another installment in this ingenious and beguiling dystopian fantasy!

I wanted to love this book. The summary sounded like it was just my kind of read. I must say that I was rather disappointed. First the good, the setting. Many centuries into the future after some great cataclysm, the written word has fallen out of favor & censorship rules. The main character, Riana is a Reader for The Union. A small group of people who can still read & who are set to work to look for messages & anomalies from The Front (the rogue group seeking to topple the government regime). She has a past that includes parents & a grandfather killed by The Union so everything is set up to be exciting. There's also a supernatural element going on with the Soul-Breathers. These are people who are able to glean pieces of a soul by touch & thus are very valuable at obtaining information. Sounds great right? I thought so also.

The problem for me was that Riana was too flat a character for me to connect to for the great majority of the book or empathize with her deeply. She was bland in almost every way one could be. She didn't have friends, she took care of her invalid sister, she kept her head down at work and basically led a life of blending in. Okay, given her circumstances, it was understandable, in the beginning. Enter Mikel, the Soul-Breather sent to get info from her & provide the romantic element of the story. Here's the thing though, Mikel was more interesting than Riana. He had deceit & subterfuge working in his favor & had to struggle between what he was hired to do & his own personal feelings. We also get Connor who knew Riana before he went all underground with The Front as The Librarian. He was more interesting than Riana. And there may or may not have been some mutual attraction between the two but nothing ever came of it. This is sort of made a big deal of but nothing really comes of it in this book, so unless there's some reckoning further along in the series, I can kind of ignore this. It's like faux-love-triangle right now. Anyway, Riana has two men working to help her find her sister, the Zealots are out for blood & there's romance in the air... and she was still flat. Literally, it was a chore sometimes to read page after page because she was so dull. I rarely experience this with main characters so it's a little difficult for me to let it go. I almost didn't want all these people putting themselves on the line to help her because I didn't feel she deserved it. She didn't do a thing to earn such loyalty & devotion.

I quite enjoyed Jenson, Tava & Donn. They were well drawn characters & mostly, more interesting than Riana. The world building was pretty good but as a dystopian/sci-fi lover, I wanted more explanation of what happened to get the world to this place. I am looking forward to seeing what more there is to learn in subsequent books.

I will say that I loved the last three chapters. They basically saved the story for me. Riana finally finding her purpose & something to drive for made me very happy.The big reveal in the last chapter pulled me in & made me want to read the next in the series.

My Review:

It's no secret that I am a HUGE reader. With that comes an almost obsessive love of books and the written word. As such, the world that Susannah Noel has created in this Urban Fantasy world is one that gives me nightmares.

This book takes place centuries into the future and in this world, reading and books are almost a non-entity. The government (the Union) has determined that the written word is an evil thing that's used to spread subversive messages. As such, there is very little written word left and even fewer that know how to read it. For what is left, the government has Readers to ensure that the messages being sent forth aren't used to start a rebellion. The heroine of the book, Riana is one of those Readers. She knows not to go against the government. Both her parents and grandfather paid with their lives for doing so. Riana can't take that risk because she has to care for her sick 16 yo sister. But sometimes fate has a way of taking care of things for you.

She gets pulled into something when she discovers something in a text that's odd. Not wanting to jump to conclusions, she took it to one of her fellow Readers, Jenson, before reporting it. He asks her to not report it and since she trusts him, she hides her finding. That sets forth a whole chain of reactions that play out over the rest of the novel.

There are several different groups pulling at Riana for unknown reasons, the Union (the government), the Front (the rebellion), and the Zealots (those against all of them). She also has two extremely sexy, although very different guys interested in her: Connor and Mikel. Connor has been a friend for a long time. He was a fellow Reader who dropped off the face of the earth three years ago (for very good reasons that she doesn't know about) but has reappeared to help her. Then there is Mikel, a Soul-Breather sent originally to spy on Riana by the Union until he started to fall for her.

I'm not usually a huge fan of a love triangle, but Susannah did it really well. Throughout the entire book I continued to flip-flop on who I wanted Riana to end up with....both of these guys make great heroes, but for completely different reasons. The guys are both so different and even their devotion to Riana is different, but I really liked both of them!

This is definitely a great start to this Urban Fantasy series. I marked a quote towards the end of the book because it quantified just why I loved this book so much....
"But books can change things. They can. They changed me."

How can you not love a book when that is the message it puts forth? I am definitely sold on this series. Now I am just counting down the days until book #2, Word and Deed, comes out in December. Contrasting the two titles and what I know from the story on this one...I am really excited to read the next one. I am thinking that it may be more Connor focused, but who knows. I just know I will be reading it!