BOOK REVIEW- Grand Master's Pawn

BOOK REVIEW- Grand Master's Pawn-  Young empath, Violet Hunter, achieves her dream of exploring planets by becoming the pawn of one of the twelve Grand Masters, despite her forbidden psychic talent. She believes her secret is safe because the Grand Masters never appear in public and communicate through avatars. 
When life-threatening cracks in the vast web of interplanetary portals disrupt civilization, Violet agrees to investigate the cause. At the same time, her trusted tutor, Mother Tingu, explains that her father’s death twenty years ago was no accident. Tingu suspects the perpetrator of both crimes comes from within the ranks of the Twelve, perhaps even Violet’s own obnoxious Grand Master. Violet must penetrate their curtain of secrecy to identify the culprit. Her challenges escalate when she meets the enigmatic man behind the griffin avatar. Armed with only her erratic powers and a mishmash of allies, she must challenge the most powerful beings in the galaxy. 
Reminiscent of the science fiction stories of Andre Norton, Violet’s perilous adventures are sweetened by romance and a sprinkle of laughter. 
Book 1 of the Grand Master’s Trilogy.   AMAZON

I really, really liked it. Colorful planets and colorful "people" make for quite the interesting story. Wonderful detailed multiple world building. We get to go on the adventure with Violet and she sure makes that trip enjoyable. I liked Violet's zeal for life, her spunky attitude and generous heart towards other people and species. She had such a curiosity about life. She would make a great friend although she did tend to live dangerously. Violet's mentor, Mother Tingu, was quite the interesting character also. Wise, strict but also kind to Violet in her own way. The Grand Master that Violet served was known to her only as The Griffin, mainly from what she pieced together. He was quite the unknown element. Was he good or was he evil? What were his motives? Only time would tell. Some of the species that Violet befriended were unique and interesting. As were her sometimes frightening developing powers. That brought up many questions as well. The magic like powers were well done in the story and varied in the types as well. 
This book ended many of the mysteries but some were left answered so of course there will also be more adventures. 

The sneak peek into Book 2- Grand Master's Game, is included in the back of this book. 

A couple of side notes:
Flashy! I'm smiling now but that word threw me at first. I thought, did I miss something? Which one of the people in the group was named Flashy? I slowly realized that it was an unusual word, but the meaning was similar to, "wow" as an exclamation of excitement for something. A least that was my take on it. 
And-
I found the book cover appealing, although the man on the cover probably didn't have a big enough hawk like nose like the story said. 
But it was still a good cover for the book, at least that's my opinion.  I see that a different cover was chosen for the final cover but I really find that this one is my favorite of the two.


I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.