The Shifter

A war orphan in occupied Geveg, a society in which the highly regulated pain trade is a mainstay of the corrupt economy, Nya has a powerful talent for drawing pain out of a sufferer into her own body. If she only had the ability to dump the pain into pynvium metal to get rid of it, she could become an apprentice in the Healer's League, like her sister Tali. What Nya has instead—the power to push pain into another human being—is taboo. But when Tali disappears along with other apprentices following a terrible ferry crash, Nya is willing to do anything to find her, including selling the use of her talent to an unscrupulous pain merchant in exchange for information and, later, pynvium, which is suddenly in short supply. Where has the pynvium gone? Why are the apprentices disappearing? Who's using the crisis for their own gain? Nya's distinctive first-person voice, strongly personable with a wry sense of humor, draws readers in, while the (mostly) simple, hard-charging plot makes the pages fly by. Questions of ethics—would you save someone's life at the cost of unbearable pain to someone else? Would it make a difference if the pain recipient were willing?—are adroitly presented. Nya's horror at the prospect of being used as a weapon will resonate with readers, who will eagerly await the next volume of the Healing Wars. ANITA L. BURKAM