Let's Talk Books

I love a bit of urban fantasy, and I have recently come upon an appreciation for novels set just after WWI, so when I saw something which combined both interests on NetGalley, I jumped at the opportunity to read it – and I am so glad I did.

First-Degree Magic is not a book one flies through. It demands thought, and careful reading. It is rife with unreliability, with liars, with secrets, with suspense, and all of those things require close attention, but what it gives you in return is a twisty, excellently built story with compelling, and fleshed out characters.

In an alternate America, where colonialism was never realised, and magic never died out, a Knight Maiden of the Order of Joan, the beautiful, keen, and secretive Bernie Chandler, is tasked with solving a series of brutal murders. In her corner, Jack Donovan, an occultists working for the police who seems to have just a bit too much knowledge, and the reluctant and scheming Tino Morandi, a demi-demon gangster who wants to help Bernie about as much as he wants a hole in the head. You might think this is a classic love triangle set-up…. you’d be wrong. As Bernie plays piggy in the middle, the truth an elusive ball tossed over her head by the warring factions of Tino and Donovan, the situation around them spirals further out of control – more people are dying, tension is mounting, and a terrifying face from Bernie’s past reappears at the worst time. Engaging and well-paced, this is a mystery, a thriller, and in places a meditation on what it is to be human.

I thoroughly enjoyed First-Degree Magic, and I am excited to see what comes next. J.M. Linkhart is a brilliant writer, and I think has set herself up to continue this into a truly genre defining historical urban fantasy series. I have many a theory about where this series may go, and I will be waiting with baited breath to see if I am correct!