Book Description
SHE HATES USING MAGIC . . .
Ever since the death of her parents, Sara Temple has rejected her magical gifts. Then, in a moment of extreme danger, she unknowingly sends out a telepathic cry for help—to the one man she is convinced she never wants to see again.
HE’S A POWERFUL WIZARD . . .
Jackson Slater thought he was done forever with his ex-fiancée, but when he hears her desperate plea, he teleports halfway around the world to aid her in a situation where magic has gone suddenly, brutally wrong.
THEY’VE BEEN CHOSEN TO SAVE THE WORLD . . .
But while Sara and Jack remain convinced they are completely mismatched, the Wizard Council feels otherwise. A dark force is killing some of the world’s most influential wizards, and the ex-lovers have just proved their abilities are mysteriously amplified when they work together. But with the fate of the world at stake, will the violent emotions still simmering between them drive them farther apart . . . or bring them back into each other’s arms?
Review
~Reviewed by Julia~
BLACK MAGIC takes a little bit of “Romancing the Stone”, adds some grown up Harry Potter, and finishes off with a whole lot of “The Temple of Doom.” Despite the flavors of adventure, magic, and romance, I never felt particularly engaged by either the plot or the characters. Unfortunately, the bulk of my thoughts after finishing BLACK MAGIC revolved around trying to create some order out of this welter of mythology and sex.
Admittedly, my failure to connect with this book could be just that, my failure. The opening leaps straight into a contrived exposition about the magic and mythology surrounding the Aequitas race. This explanation came before I was invested in the characters, or the book, and put me off from the start. Furthermore, despite the exhaustive detail provided about the Aequitas and their enemies, I was frustrated to find no detail about the parts of magic I did find interesting. Prophetic, floating book? Cool! Tell me more! ... Um... hello? Anyone out there? The mystical book was so under-explained I stopped reading to make sure I was starting at the beginning of the series (According to Wikipedia, BLACK MAGIC is first in this particular series, but it’s set in the established world of a prior series). Given how much I like to piece together magical “physics” in a book, I think I would have been better off starting with one of Adair’s earlier T-FLAC psi unit books. Given my frustration with the magical portions of the book, I have difficulty objectively deciding if I had valid issues with the romance. I felt like too much of the book revolved around one of my least favorite romance tropes, with a break up based on lack of communication (made famous in Rebecca, and a thousand romances that followed). Despite later revelations to explain Sara and Jack’s behavior, it couldn’t make me go back and enjoy the beginning of the book. Outside what is fundamentally my own negative reaction to a common romance plot line, I enjoyed Sara and Jack. They had their moments, and I enjoyed the scent details and staging Adair includes. She made me want to hunt down ginger body soaps and an ice hotel in Greenland. As for the villains of the book, the dastardly, snake-people, they were as obvious and unbelievable as the magic. I found several attack and attempted rape scenes both confusing and egregious. The best thing to come out of reading BLACK MAGIC was, when I solicited my husband’s help in figuring out the mythology of the book, he was derailed into a 30 minute hunt to find out if “snakes get erections” (Google yielded some obscene results, but his college herpetology text book says “Yes.”). When it comes down to it, my dislike of BLACK MAGIC could be the result of several of my own pet peeves combining to create a gestalt dislike. In a better mood, these shortcomings might have struck me as an enjoyable comedy of romance and fantasy themes, but as circumstances had it, I could barely make myself finish it.Sexual Content: Several explicit sex scenes, explicit attempted rape, descriptions of rape.
My Rating (out of 5):Okay – Somewhat disappointing with significant flaws. Library/swap/borrow if you want.
Click HERE to read an excerpt from BLACK MAGIC
Previous books in the series:
- N/A
Product Details
Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages - Publisher: Pocket Star; 1 edition (July 20, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1439153817
- ISBN-13: 978-1439153819
- Cover Art: N/A
*Disclosure: I received this book courtesy of Simon & Schuster
Also reviewed by:
The Good, The Bad and The Unread
Michelle's Book Blog
A Journey of Books
Shucks, I am bummed to hear. I really enjoyed Cherry's TFLAC- psi books in the big series. So I was hoping to read this one too!=)
ReplyDeleteThank you for the review. I always like yours!=)
have a good one!
I'm sorry you didn't like this one. I was certainly intrigued by the cover and the blurb. I may give it a try anyway and see how it goes for me. Thanks for the review.
ReplyDeleteLLL - You've piqued my curiosity, I've heard the TFLAC series is good from other sources as well. I will definitely add the first one to my TBR pile (if only to see if they explain the magic book). Should I go back to the start of TFLAC? Or just the start of the psi books?
ReplyDeletePeachy - Definitely worth a try if you liked the blurb! My questions about snakes caused my husband to skim the entire book (looking for the magic/mythology parts). Despite only reading every other page, he was a big fan. Maybe I should get him to write the "Everything but the Mushy Bits" review...
It's a really good book. you can't just go and research crap cause then you go into the book with a closed mind. There are some things in the book I didn't like, yeah sure. I didn't need a description on rape or Grant being ew... anyways, that's always going to ruin the book .Just read the damn thing and enjoy it.
ReplyDelete@Xarik - Glad you found things to enjoy in BLACK MAGIC, I still haven't made it back to earlier TFLAC books (or any other Adair). Any recommendations on where I should have started?
ReplyDelete