Belated Review Magic To the Bone
It's late at night early in the morning and I can't sleep. I'm supposed to go back to work this week - tomorrow or Tuesday, my choice-but I can't sleep. I realized when playing around with my links to books I reviewed on my other blog that there are EIGHT books that I've read this year and never reviewed. How weird. I was going to read, and leave off the typing for now because I don't feel good, but then I looked at a review on Powell's site fo Magic To the Bone and couldn't resist writing a comment about it. So, I copied what I wrote to post here. Is that lazy? yeah. Here it is anyway.
Magic To The Bone
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Devon Monk
I picked up this book on a whim last year and just loved it. Devon Monk does something new with the magic. In the world she writes about, (set in Oregon) when magic is used, a price needs to be paid, usually a physical one. The payment affects the body in pain, migraines, lost memories etc. However magic users have learned how to use proxies to pay the price. A black market of magic users offload onto innocent victims.
Allie Beckstrom has learned how to set her own price, a disbursement-her father taught her how. Except sometimes she forgets to set a disbursement. Because of this she has learned to keep a notebook with her that she uses to jot down pertinent facts about what she's been doing or will be doing. She also knows how to "hound" magic use, track down magic "signatures" since everyone has their own signature when they use magic. This is how she makes her living. Her father is the head of a large corporation that sells magic and things to do with magic (experiments, also).
Allie Beckstrom's book begins with her being asked to find out who has almost killed a young child by illegally using him as a proxy. The trail leads her to her father. This begins a long and dangerous path for Allie. She ends up accused of murder, having to go in hiding, has to decide whether or not to trust a man that's been showing up everywhere she has (finds out some things about him also), and much more.
The thing I like about this book is that Allie, although she has great magic power, still pays huge prices for her actions. There is no HEA for her. Good things happen for her and bad things happen to her. She deals with everything as she can. Another thing I like about this book is the narrative style and the dialogue between characters. Never any lame dialogue, which is obsessively important to me.
Once I read this book, I was seriously "jonesing" for more from Devon Monk. But I had to wait until the next book came out, have read that one and wanted to go back to read both over again. I'm waiting for re-reads, though since I have a tremendous TBR pile waiting for me....
Magic to the Bone is a worthwile book.