TW/CW
This book and the review mention suicide.
I picked up this book for its cover. The blue really spoke to me. Plus it was on sale. That’s two things in its favour. Not a very substantial reason to start a book, but it is what it is. Now that I’ve read it, I can list a few more things it has going for it, although there are some negatives, too.
Dovey van Dalen is a mystic. She was spellbound at 18 and so ages really really slowly. She’s currently a very attractive woman of indeterminate age, but she’s actually 200 years old. She lives in present day Washington, DC working for Elric – a very powerful mystic in charge of a large area of North America. She’s also been in love with Elric and committed to him for nigh on 180 years.
Dovey’s job is to retrieve lost trinkets. Mystics imbue small items like jewellery and watches with power and spells so they can serve a function beyond their everyday use.
TW/CW suicide
For example, the trinket that Dovey is tasked with finding in this book is a ring that convinces people to commit suicide when they see it.
This trinket has been stolen and it’s leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. A trail that the unbound (or fully human, non-mystic) world takes notice of in the form of an FBI agent, Grant ‘Gib’ Barlow.
Gib and Dovey work together to track down the culprits, but Dovey keeps Gib in the dark about what’s really causing these deaths. She hides her powers and her truth from him, too. Her heart, however, does not hide. There is flirting, for sure, coming from both parties. But can this go anywhere when he is unbound and Elric is a jealous lover (despite Elric having multiple affairs and even a wife)?
There are a couple of things that really worked for me in this book. First, the world-building. I don’t read a lot of paranormal romance or contemporary romance with fantasy elements. But for me, I enjoyed the way the basis for all magical actions was through these trinkets. The trinkets were hoarded and stolen from each other and swapped. I found it vivid and original and I enjoyed the tremendous creativity in terms of how the story unfolds. Second, I enjoyed that there were a number of side characters and subplots along with the main mystery and romance storylines.
There are, however, some things that didn’t work for me. It’s somewhat a cosy mystery but the body count is exceptionally high before there is any progress made on the case. In fact, the mystery plot only gets proper traction in the last 5% of the novel. Looking back after I finished, I can see the two or so clues that told me who the culprit was, but while I was reading it felt like Gib and Dovey were making no progress at all and people just kept dying. If the body count hadn’t been so high and there’d maybe been a few red herrings or some tangible progress along the way, it would have worked better for me. As it was, I was stressed out wondering why they weren’t getting anywhere.
The other thing that didn’t work for me sounds a bit ridiculous but both Gib and Dovey were too attractive to be cosy mystery leads. For reasons I don’t understand, I expect cosy mystery leads to be ordinary-looking folk. I’m not sure where I get this from, but it felt jarring to have the two main characters be physically very attractive people. Another thing is that Gib works with Dovey almost too enthusiastically. Aren’t law enforcement supposed to be sceptical of ‘private detectives’? But they become a team almost immediately. Is it because they find each other attractive?
As for the romance, there’s a lot of longing coming from both parties although the story is only told from Dovey’s POV. They’ve got significant barriers to an HEA and those are unpacked in the story. There’s certainly no HEA but they do reach an accord of some kind. This makes me curious about how their romance will unfold in the next book in the series which is due out near the end of 2025.
Looking at it with a bit of distance, this book is distinctly middle of the road for me. While I had a mostly good time reading it and I’m certainly curious about the next installment, it didn’t set my world on fire. It had enough to hold my interest for the duration, which can’t be overstated. In my Kindle I have more books in my ‘boring’ collection than I do in my ‘read’ collection. This book had a spark of creativity that I enjoyed, but it didn’t turn into that reading inferno that comes with a great book.