A Touch of MagicRating: 3.25 stars
Buy Link:
Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel


Cary made his mistakes and served his time and now he’s trying to make a living. His plan is to build his reputation and his bank account as a stage magician. Cary doesn’t think he’s all that good and he knows the success of his show is dependent on a magical amulet he inherited from his grandfather–the amulet that has the ability to captivate an audience. Cary has no idea there are others after his amulet, however.

Ty doesn’t have much magical ability himself, but he can get any magical object, for the right price that is. When he accepts the job to steal Cary’s amulet, Ty thinks he’s in for a quick job and easy money. Cary should know better as he’s not the only one looking for the amulet. When the men find they are on the radar of a mob boss, they have little choice but to form a shaky alliance. The men definitely have a spark between them, but business is business and it’s every man for himself, although that’s not so easy to sustain for Ty and Cary.

Books with magic are always a draw for me and I am always looking for something new that reaches out of the usual magic seen in a lot of books. I can’t say that A Touch of Magic succeeded in that regard as the magic seen here was basic and somewhat haphazard, even when there were full-scale sorcerers on page.

Cary and Ty are thrown together out of circumstance. They are both fairly alone in life and trying to get by. Ty has little memory of his early life and he basically remembers life with his mentor, Leland. But that relationship ended when Leland severed ties and Ty has no idea why. Cary has no idea at all what he is capable of and relies on an amulet that belonged to his grandfather to sustain his small magic show. What follows is a chase as the amulet changes hands and while Ty and Cary think they are working together, old instincts die hard.

The guys are attracted to each other and act on it, but Ty knows it can never go anywhere. The romance runs second to the magic storyline as Ty and Cary find themselves in one dangerous situation after another. The story overall was too basic for me. There’s the amulet and the mob and various bad guys and while there is magic, it never elevated to a level that had me captivated. And, if the author is going to use words like “meddling,” I will always think of Scooby-Doo, which them gave it a farcical feel at times.

The men are in danger for portions of the book, but it never had that emotion for me of not being able to wait to see what happened to these guys. The name of the series here is Fae-Touched and it is only touched upon what that means to the overall story as the series will continue on from here. It’s an interesting premise, but the style didn’t fully capture me. It had the feeling of the author knowing exactly what the story was and where it wanted to go, but it didn’t all come across clearly on the page.

Cary and Ty do find their way to each other and will have more adventures to take on together. I’d say you could give this a try if you were looking for a story with movement, a touch of magic, and two men trying not to be so alone.

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