Review: Ill-Conceived Magic - R.L. Naquin

Empath and caretaker to monsters, Zoey Donovan, finds a package on her front lawn. It cries a lot and wears diapers. It also has horns, cloven hooves, and green skin.

Zoey and Maurice the closet monster look for the unlikely parents in a crazy attempt to bring together the mismatched family. A dangerous prospect, considering the family's hostile relatives.

Ill-Conceived Magic is a short story in the same world as the Monster Haven novels from Carina Press. It also includes a bonus first chapter of Pooka in My Pantry.

This story can be enjoyed without having read the novels. However, it fits chronologically between book one, Monster in My Closet, and book two, Pooka in My Pantry.

Monster Haven Series:
Monster in My Closet
Ill-Conceived Magic (Short Story)
Pooka in My Pantry
Hidden Holidays (Short Story)
Fairies in My Fireplace
What Zoey Doesn't Know (Short Story)
Golem in My Glovebox
Demons in My Driveway
Transmonstrified (Short Story Collection)
Phoenix in My Fortune

Djinn Haven series:
(Spin off from the Monster Haven series but can be read separately)
To Catch A Stolen Soul
To Seize a Wayward Spirit
To Free a Captured Heart

Visit R.L. Naquin's website for more information

Review:
After really enjoying Monster in My Closet I couldn't wait to spend more time in the world that R.L. Naquin has created. This story is set not long after the first book, Zoey is now used to sharing her house with the various supernatural creatures who have come to her for help and she's actually enjoying having them around. Things are thrown into disarray when they find a rather surprising gift on the doorstep though - an abandoned baby. The baby isn't exactly human either, in fact it seems to be part dryad and part satyr which is rather surprising considering how much the two species hate each other. Can Zoey track down the baby's parents and reunite a family or will that prove to be impossible considering both sides are practically at war?

Ill-Conceived Magic is a very short story of around 50 pages so it is a very quick read but it is still full of the humour I've come to expect from this series. Zoey and Maurice get a lot more than they bargained for when they set out to find the baby's parents and their interactions with the satyrs in particular were absolutely hilarious. If you enjoyed the first book in the series then you're sure to love this story just as much.

My one hesitancy to recommend it would be down to the price, I know it is becoming more and more common for authors to offer additional short stories set in the same world as their established series. These stories aren't usually essential reading to follow the ongoing series plot (I believe that is the case here but I won't know for sure until I read Pooka in My Pantry) and I do enjoy getting additional insight into the characters but I think it's a bit of a rip off to charge fans for such a short story when a lot of authors offer similar ones for free. In fact Ill-Conceived Magic was originally available for free from Smashwords (which is thankfully when I downloaded it) but is currently more expensive on Amazon UK than the first full length novel and that just doesn't seem right to me. I'm definitely looking forward to continuing with this series but I'm reluctant to pay so much for the short stories that seem to be coming in between each full length book so I may decide to skip Hidden Holidays and What Zoey Doesn't Know.

Source: Received from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Other Reviews:
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Kindle:

Review: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.  I never asked to be the son of a Greek God.

I was just a normal kid, going to school, playing basketball, skateboarding.  The usual.  Until I accidentally vaporized my maths teacher.  That's when things really started going wrong.  Now I spend my time fighting with swords, battling monsters with my friends and generally trying to stay alive.

This is the one where Zeus, God of the Sky, thinks I've stolen his lightning bolt - and making Zeus angry is a very bad idea.


Percy Jackson Series:
The Lightning Thief
Sea of Monsters
Titan's Curse
Battle of the Labyrinth
Last Olympian

Visit Rick Riordan's website or the Percy Jackson website for more information

Review:
I'm sure that I'm not the only person who brought this book purely because I liked the look of the film trailer.  I always prefer to read the book first so I just had to pick it up.  I didn't know much about the series before I started reading so I wasn't sure what to expect.  I had a feeling that I might find it aimed at a younger audience that the usual YA books I read but as it turned out I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Percy is a 12 year old boy with dyslexia and ADHD.  At the start of the book he is on the verge of being expelled from his 6th school in as many years for behaviour problems.  He tries to be good but finds it hard to fit in & always seems to be caught in the middle of strange events. 

When on a school trip Percy ends up vaporising his teacher & things start to get really strange.  He is struggling to make sense of what is happening around him and is very surprised to discover that the father he never met is actually a Greek God.  He ends up at Camp Half Blood - a summer school for demigods and starts to understand the strange things that have happened throughout his life.

He has the usual problems associated with trying to fit in at a new school but starts to feel like he is settling in.  The last thing he wants to be is a hero, but when it becomes apparant that Zeus believes he was responsible for stealing his lightning bolt, Percy is left with no choice but to accept a quest.  Armed with a magical pen and with the assistance of his friends Grover and Annabeth, it is up to Percy to find the missing lightning bolt and return it to Zeus before the God's start a war.

This was a really great read & can be enjoyed by young and old alike.  I quickly found myself immersed in the world Rick Riordan has created and the story moved along at a fast pace.  I really enjoyed the way Greek mythology was woven into the story & I found it easy to relate to the main characters.  I know there have been comparisons to Harry Potter by other reviewers but I didn't even think of that while I was reading the book.  Yes there are similarities but you can make comparisons about many books & that doesn't take anything away from the enjoyment I got from reading this book.  I'm looking forward to continuing reading this series.

Source: Purchased

Other Reviews:
I Swim For Oceans
Laughing Stars
Ms. Martin Teaches Media
Book Rat
A Few Good Books
Girls Without a Bookshelf
Nayu's Reading Corner
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.