Death Magic by May DawneyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Once I found out the ages of the main characters, I was quite happy, very happy, that this book did not, in fact, turn out the way I had expected it to . . . um . . turn out. I had expected either: 1) another romance, coupling up, like first book, or 2) advancement of series. I was putting the odds at about 90% 1 was likely. Turned out – neither were correct.
This book is neither a romance, nor did it advance the series – I mean, literally advance it in time. Since the events that unfold take place during the same period of time as the events that occurred in the first book. Just involving different characters in a different part of the word (though one of the characters could ‘feel’ some of the events that occurred in the other book, when they occurred).
17 year old naïve, shy, deeply afraid of life, people, everything, Claire stumbles around as the main point of view character. Everything but the epilogue is from her point of view. The book opens with her about to be hit by a truck, only to be saved at the last possible moment by a woman on a motorcycle. Then she ends up back at her apartment, shaking, shuddering, wondering what is going on with her body, why she keeps losing time, why she keeps finding herself in strange locations unaware of how she got there (everything in the setup lead me to believe the character was early to mid-twenties, including the part where she lived in an apartment by herself and had a job she worried about; later there was stuff about ‘studying’ and ‘schoolwork’ which seemed vaguely jarring; still later I learned the character was 17).
Before she can say ‘boo hoo my life sucks’, she gets a knock on her door. She opens the door to find . . . the motorcyclist, who turns out to be female. And very demanding. Right up front she’s talking about sticking needles into Claire, and how they are late – how they need to leave immediately. Claire, being the spineless pushover puppet, just goes along with things. Sure, stick needles into me, draw my blood, drag me from Baton Rouge to London. Why the fuck not, eh? Fuck my life, job, school, family, friends. Okay, this is actually making it seem like she had more agency, like she was into leaving, she wasn’t. She didn’t want to leave. She also didn’t want to lift a finger to stop herself from leaving so . . . she got dragged away from her life.
Very quickly we, or I mean Claire, learns: she has a ‘special brain’ that allows ‘dead people’ to ‘possess her’. Specifically one Madame Stravinsky. Who was instrumental in creating the magic society vaguely (or more than vaguely) mentioned in the prior book.
So. That’s what happens. Alena, the motorcyclist, info-dumps on Claire about the society. Acts like a massive controlling . . . person, gives Claire no ability to refuse, and bluntly indicates that Claire doesn’t matter – she doesn’t need to actually know any of this stuff, she just needs to be a human shell to be possessed. Did I mention yet how I did not like a single character in this book?
Right, so, they head off to London. Alena info-dumps. Claire acts shy, nervous, etc. She reads a book by a real pompous asshole called Simon Magus. Learns some crap she’ll never actually get to remember (at least that’s the plan, but ‘we’ know that plan isn’t going to get put into effect, eh? – that plan being that her mind would be wiped (well memories of magic and stuff) after her period of being ‘used and abused’ is over).
Most people in London are nice enough to Claire, but several kind of glare angrily at her, like Elena and Mr. … um . . Alena’s father-dude.
Claire lusts after Alena and seems to blush non-stop. Alena calls her adorable. Etc. etc., I said there wasn’t a romance, I didn’t say there wasn’t flirtation.
Alena, by the way, is 33. So, a 33 year old and a 17 year old hooking up, eh? Ack, I should have noted: pops calls Claire a stick figure, while Alena calls her gorgeous, model like. So there’s some vaguely creepy vibes thrown in there as well. What with the much older woman constantly grabbing and pushing around the teenager. And making borderline flirtatious comments.
Eh, but whatever. Considering how this story turned out, I assume book three will be the same – as in, we’ve learned things (in book 1) from the Wild Magic person and her free-lance mage friend; then learned things about the society through Alena and Claire – through the same time period first book visited; then in book 3, I assume, we’ll learn about the Inquisto through Wagner; whereupon book 4 might finally actually have some advancement of story.
I leave noting what I’ve already stated – I did not like any of the characters in this story.
Rating: 3
May 20 2018
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