Review: Magic in the Blood - Devon Monk

'Magic stirred in me, offering whatever I wanted.  With little more than a thought and a gesture or two, I could make magic do anything.  So long as I was willing to pay the price . . .'

Allie Beckstrom knows better than most that there's a price to pay for using magic; she's suffered her fair share of migraines and gaps in her memory during her time working as a Hound, tracing spells back to their casters.  But now Allie's been visibly marked by magic with a mysterious iridescent tattoo.  She's not only lost all memory of how she got it, but also of the man that she's supposedly fallen in love with.  Oh, and as usual, she's completely broke.

So when the criminal magic enforcement division of the police ask her to consult on a missing persons cases, things start to look up.  At first, it seems to b a fairly straightforward way of earning some money, but like most things in Allie's life it soon turns into a dangerous mix of underworld criminals, ghosts and blood magic.

Allie Beckstrom Series:
Magic to the Bone
Magic in the Blood
Magic in the Shadows (available in the US, UK release date TBC)
Magic on the Storm (available in the US, UK release date TBC)
Magic at the Gate (available in the US, UK release date TBC)
Magic on the Hunt (available in the US, UK release date TBC)
Magic on the Line (available in the US, UK release date TBC)
Magic Without Mercy (releases in the US in 2012, UK release date TBC)

Visit Devon Monk's website for more information

Review:
Magic in the Blood picks up Allie's story not long after the ending of Magic to the Bone.  After events at the end of the first book forced her to use a great deal of magic Allie is still recovering both physically and mentally from the after effects.  She has very few memories from the past few weeks and is trying to piece together everything from the death of her father to her strange new magical abilities, not to mention her possible relationship with Zayvion.  It's not long before she has more important things to worry about though, the Magical Enforcement Response Corps (MERC) need her help Hounding a case and she is being followed by gang members working for the criminal magic user Lon Trager.  Trager was put behind bars thanks to Allie's testimony but has been released early due to a technicality.  It's no surprise to Allie that he wants revenge but he isn't the only one and Allie isn't quite sure who is going to attack first.

Although I enjoyed the first book in the series I liked Magic in the Blood even more, we are getting to know Allie a bit better now and she's becoming quite a strong character.  She isn't some kind of superhero who never gets hurt - she ends up in pain every time she uses her magic - but she is tough enough to put the pain to one side and carry on with the task at hand.  You have to admire her determination to get things done.  The memory loss she suffers as another side effect of using magic is an interesting idea and allows for some unusual plot devices because we know so much more than she does.  I do hope she retains at least some memory of the events in this book though or it could start to get a bit tedious.  It isn't surprising that she has trust issues because for most of the book she doesn't seem to get a straight answer from anyone, people always seem to give her part answers or avoid her questions altogether so the poor girl never really has a chance to find out what is really going on.

I mentioned in my review of Magic to the Bone that I was curious about Zayvion but hadn't really fallen for him and I felt that his relationship with Allie was rather rushed.  I was glad to see them take a step back in this installment and I've found that Zay is starting to grow on me, there are a few really sweet moments when he is trying to woo Allie and I'm looking forward to seeing more of that in future books.  There were more than  few occasions when I was just about ready to strangle him though - that man is a master at avoiding giving a straight answer and I think if I was Allie I would have completely given up on him.  I'm all for a man of mystery but at least give her something to go on!

I enjoyed meeting more of the Hounds and finding out about the kind of jobs they do and how they deal with the effects of the magic that they use.  It will be interesting to see how things progress with the Pack as the series continues and I think there is a lot of potential for interesting story lines involving MERC too.  The plot is a little slow moving in the first half but I'm interested enough in the world Devon Monk has created that it didn't really bother me and the pace really picks up towards the end of the book.  I'm looking forward to seeing Allie deal with her new magical abilities, I want to see more of Zay (although he'd better start giving away a bit more information about himself!) and I'm curious to find out more about the mysterious group who have been following Allie.  This series has a lot of potential and is one I would recommend to urban fantasy fans.

Source: Received from Berkley UK in exchange for an honest review

Other Reviews:
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Review: Magic to the Bone - Devon Monk

"Using magic, meant it used you back. Forget the fairytale hocus pocus, sparkles and pixie dust crap. Magic, like booze, sex, and drugs, gave as good as it got"

Everything has a cost. And every act of magic exacts a price from its user, maybe a two-day migraine, or losing the memory of your first kiss. But some people want to use magic without paying and they Offload the cost onto innocents. When that happens, it falls to a Hound to identify the spell's caster - and Allie Beckstrom is the best there is.

Daughter of a prominent Portland businessman, Allie would rather moonlight as a Hound than accept the family fortune - and the strings that come with it. But when she discovers a little boy dying from a magic Offload that has her father's signature all over it, Allie is thrown into the high stakes world of corporate espionage and black magic . . .

Allie Beckstrom Series:
Magic to the Bone
Magic in the Blood
Magic in the Shadows (available in the US, UK release date TBC)
Magic on the Storm (available in the US, UK release date TBC)
Magic at the Gate (available in the US, UK release date TBC)
Magic on the Hunt (available in the US, UK release date TBC)
Magic on the Line (available in the US, UK release date TBC)
Magic Without Mercy (releases in the US in 2012, UK release date TBC)

Visit Devon Monk's website for more information

Review:
In a world where anyone can use magic but it always has a price the more unscrupulous people out there try to find a way to force that price onto unsuspecting victims.  When the price for even the smallest magic use can be a migraine that lasts for days, serious bruising or even memory loss it's no surprise that people who are messing with nasty spells don't want to take their own backlash.  Although there are legal ways to disperse the effects using proxies people often want to take the free, more illegal, option.  Allie Beckstrom is the daughter of one of the most famous and powerful magic users but rather than be forced into joining the family business she would rather go it alone.  Working as a Hound it is her job to investigate the illegal dispersal of magical effects and track down the source of magic so that the user can be punished.  When she is asked to investigate the illegal use of a spell against a young child she tracks the source straight back to the father she hasn't seen for seven years.  But things aren't always what they first appear and the more she investigates the deeper the hole she digs for herself.

Magic to the Bone is an interesting start to a new urban fantasy series, this is a series I've heard a lot about from US bloggers but it is fairly new to the UK with only the first two titles in the series currently available from a UK publisher (hopefully the rest of the series will be following soon).  I really like the world that Devon Monk has created, the idea that using magic has a price was really interesting and I loved the fact that the magic can be tapped into thanks to underground magical cabling.  This was made even better by the fact that the poorest parts of town didn't have the required cabling so become kind of like magical dead zones.

I liked Allie and it was interesting that her use of magic nearly always caused physical pain as well as memory loss, she had to carry around a notebook with her to write down important events in case she couldn't remember them after her next attempt at using magic.  I have to say that apart from the curiosity of her memory loss she doesn't really stand out as a kick ass urban fantasy heroine yet but hopefully that means she has plenty of room to grow as the series continues.  I'm looking forward to seeing how her character shapes up in the next few books.

While I'm very curious about love interest Zayvion I haven't fallen for him yet.  I felt the relationship with him and Allie kind of came out of nowhere and was a bit too rushed.  I would have really liked it if the sexual tension from the beginning of the story could have continued a bit longer as it would have made things more believable.  Zayvion is still quite a mystery, in fact I think he's more of a mystery at the end of the book than he was at the beginning!  I am looking forward to finding out more about him but I'm still not sure if he is 100% trustworthy.  I did really like Allie's friend Nola though and I really hope we see more of both her and Cody as the series continues.

I think Magic to the Bone was a solid start to a series that has a lot of potential if the characters really start to develop in the next installment. I already have a copy of Magic in the Blood and am looking forward to getting stuck into it.

Source: Purchased

Other Reviews:
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.

Paperback / Kindle