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Dark Apprentice: Fall of Magic Book One
Nikolai is a young wizard with high aspirations. He wishes to achieve immortality and become a grandmaster of dark magic. But he’s currently apprenticed to a mage who hasn’t been quite satisfactory and he is stuck in a town where dark magic is banned. He’s desperate to learn from Medea, an immortal mage with a reputation of killing all her apprentices and he goes to great lengths to manipulate her into accepting him. He gets what he wants but he’s still not happy and spends all his time working out ways to avoid doing the work she asks of him. He also becomes chronically unwell and thinks it’s all the…
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The Beautiful Ones
Nina arrives in Loisail for her first Grand Season, sponsored by her cousin and his wife. She’s long had difficulties fitting in, what with her uncontrolled telekinesis powers causing her considerable difficulty. She might have hoped for things to be better in the city but she feels more an outsider than ever and the attempts by her cousin’s wife Valerie to mold her into a Beautiful One cause her more misery than ever. It’s at a party that she meets the famous Hector Auvray, an entertainer with powers like hers. She recognizes him from a photograph and immediately forms an attachment, Hector, however, is only there to see Valerie, who…
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How To Talk to a Goddess
Nearly four years ago I was browsing shelves at a local library and The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker caught my attention. It was a paperback and rather thick, as these sorts of fantasy books tend to be. Anyway, I checked it out and read it and I was in love. It was a fantasy book about magic, unlike anything I’d read. There was action, drama, and a bit more than a suggestion of a blooming romance. I really loved the writing: it was just a joy to read the words. I have read it a couple more times since then and still take delight…