Review Reanimated - Chaos Magic by Jay Lygon
Originally published at Lee Benoit Tales. You can comment here or there.
One of the ways I become a better writer is by reviewing. I used to review a lot more, but I’ve scaled back due to writing and real life demands. One of the sites I used to review for, the terrific RAINBOW REVIEWS, has also closed to new reviews (though you can still view the site for now). I’m also slowly updating a list of all my reviews over on my GLBT Bookshelf pages.
I thought I’d give those older reviews of mine a second airing here, especially because I was fortunate to review some really fantastic books. So here’s the first in an occasional series. (Disclaimer: I’m presenting these as they originally appeared.)
CHAOS MAGIC by Jay Lygon
Publisher’s blurb:
Sam is a broken young man, searching for temporary escape from his demons-inside and out. Running from abusive ex-lover Marcus, the God of Fear, Sam finds himself in the arms of the hottest man to step foot into his life: Hector.
Hector proves to be the Daddy Sam needs and wants, but the road is a very rocky and often terrifying one. As Marcus digs his claws deeper into Sam, it threatens to tear apart everything Sam and Hector have built together.
My Review:
What an enthralling book! A unique premise, absorbing voice, unexpected imagery, and a cracking pace combine to make Jay Lygon’s Chaos Magic a novel worth reading more than once. Genuine darkness and breath-stopping sex add to its edginess, and the complexity of the plot and characters leave readers panting for a sequel.
Sam is a film critic whose career is starting to take off just as his personal life seems to tank thanks to an abusive relationship with a bad Dom. His irrepressible sensuality and reckless enthusiasm for anything-goes kinkiness seem in real danger of winking out as Sam succumbs to the depression and self-doubt of Fear. That’s the God of Fear, his ex, Marcus.
Fortunately for him (and for us readers), Sam is also a witch from a land- and fertility-worshipping clan, so he’s got the chops to keep his head above water, if only barely, by steadfastly worshipping his own personal pantheon. His scruffy apartment is full of altars to gods his family worships, like Fertility and Agriculture, and to gods he’s identified by virtue of his own powerful magic. Here is our first indication that Lygon’s story is several cuts above the run-of-the-mill paranormals out there: These new gods include Deal, the Goddess of Negotiation and Crash, the God of Computers, but most notably Sam worships Angelena, the Goddess of Traffic. She’s a biker dyke with “asphalt black hair,” “concrete gray eyes,” who smells of “grease and hot metal.” See what I mean? We’re in new territory here, exciting, clever, and funny territory.
Unfortunately for Sam (but not for us readers), he’s in denial about his own nature. Oh, he’s great with being gay, content as a confirmed bottom (this is no saccharine coming out or discovery story), but there’s more to him than he’s willing to acknowledge, even when staying in the cosmological closet threatens to destroy him. His sporadic and impetuous uses of sex magic and chaos magic fail to change reality, either objectively or in Sam’s mind, and Sam’s refusal to heed the word of his gods make him a narrator for the ages, unreliable and lovable in equal measure.
Enter Hector, Sam’s ideal Top. At first blush, Hector completes the traditional pairing of big, rich, older Dom with smaller, poor, younger sub. But there are twists galore in their liaison, not all of them happy ones, and their troubled relationship plays out on a number of levels, both cosmic and mundane. The questions we (and Sam) harbor about Hector’s motivations drive the conflict and keep the pages turning even more furiously than the skillfully-wrought scenes of BDSM sexuality or the burgeoning love story. Watching Sam transcend his no-strings bottoming to learn a deeper range of sensuality and ultimately come into his own full power is captivating, disturbing, and utterly delightful reading.
Lygon injects the BDSM love story and the magical-realist bildungsroman with some very dark notes of domestic violence and mental illness; that the hopeful (I won’t call it happy) ending is believable is a testament to the skill of the author and the power of the story. If I have a criticism of the book it is that Hector’s misapplications of his power make his love for Sam suspect to the point of being irredeemable. The rather precipitous ending does not resolve our lingering questions about Hector’s worthiness of Sam’s love or Sam’s future emotional safety with Hector, though one imagines the planned sequel will address them. I wouldn’t dream of missing it!
{This review originally appeared at the Rainbow Reviews site.}
Books 2 and 3 in the series are also available from Torquere.