Urban Paranormal Fantasy

Review of Alchemy of Secrets by Stephanie Garber

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Synopsis:
What if the urban legends you’ve always heard about were real?

It starts with a class in an old movie theatre. Folklore 517: Local Legends and Urban Myths, taught by a woman called the Professor.

Most students believe the Professor’s stories are just fiction, but Holland St. James has always been convinced that magic is real.

Her search for the truth leads her to a dazzling new world, a deadly secret hidden at the heart of Los Angeles, and into the path of Gabriel Cabral, who says he’s been sent to save her life.

But when another magnetic stranger, Adam Bishop, makes the same claim, Holland realizes that at least one of these men is lying to her. And if she can’t figure out whom to trust, her magical reality could change from a Hollywood dream to a nightmare.


Review:
Garber’s first adult modern fantasy novel sucks the reader in and I, for one, certainly didn’t want to leave. This novel blurs the line of folklore and reality while expertly entwining hidden agendas and personas. This book was quite hard to set aside, with each new bit of knowledge, unfolded piece of the mystery leaving more questions than answers–even the end left me wanting to know more! This book is built on layers of layers of history, great character development, and an intriguing magical tie in.

Without giving anything away, I absolutely loved the Hollywood influence throughout this novel. I also thought that Holland’s reality spasms made the shift between reality and what could be, as well as what she felt she should do intuition wise versus thinking things through all the more realistic. For some reason I could only see the Professor as Hetty from NCIS Los Angeles but it seemed rather fitting for the part. There are so many loose ends that I wish we had the chance to learn more about, and I am desperately hoping that another book may be forthcoming that will tie in Chance and Holland in this same world/setting.

If you enjoy reading paranormal fantasy books with a Hollywood twist and loads of mystery/intrigue I would highly recommend this book. If you love fantasy, specifically YA, I would recommend both Garber’s Caraval series and Once Upon a Broken Heart.

Star rating: ✯✯✯✯✯

Review of The Wizard’s Butler by Nathan Lowell

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Synopsis:
“He thinks he’s a wizard,” they said. For five grand a month and a million dollar chaser, Roger Mulligan didn’t care how crazy the old geezer was. All he had to do was keep Joseph Perry Shackleford alive and keep him from squandering the estate for a year. They didn’t tell him about the pixies.

Review:
“Ebooks. This is my only connection to the outer world.” (Page 84)

This book has everything except romance, and always left me wanting to keep reading on. I had to sleep halfway through a chapter many a night because I didn’t want to put this book down! While this book has some sort of wizard, maybe, one of the main focuses is easy to relate to Roger Mulligan, who is former army/former EMT. He’s got a steady mind and can be quick on his feet, which makes his entry into a world he had never imagined; that of being a butler, a job that many think doesn’t even exist, all the more exciting. Especially when you add in that Shackleford thinks he’s a wizard. Despite being about the mundane things we do not want to think about in our own day to day life, Lowell writes Mulligan’s activities in a way that make you want to see more of just what a butler may do and how his job influences and interacts with all of the other ongoing plots. All of the characters had great depth and motives. While at times it seemed a very low-risk cozy modern/urban paranormal fantasy, the fatality at stake leads one to need to keep reading. I loved seeing how the house encouraged change for the inhabitants, and how it helped them to find what they most needed in their lives. Mulligan needed this job, but in many ways, Shackleford needed him to lead him into a new era. I’ve already started the second book, and so far (19% in) it is just as good as the first.

I loved this book immensely and cannot wait to share it with my husband and friends in the near future.

Star rating: ✯✯✯✯✯