Name: Magic Dark, Magic Divine
ISBN: 9781649372451

A.J. Locke

Waking up after 300 years to a magic-less world, mercenary Pennrae has had to conceal her magical skills. That is until magic-eating monsters descend on New York City causing all kinds of havoc. Paranormal romance readers won’t want to miss the stunning first book in A.J. Locke’s ’Warrior of the Divine Sword series.

Magic Dark, Magic Divine

Dee B. 

There's this thing that I usually do, where no matter how much I'm enjoying a book, the closer I get to the end the more I just want to speed through the end to be done with it. I DID not have that problem with this book. I wanted to prolong it as much as possible but I could not help but speed through the ending as I was having such a great time with it.

What I loved about this one: the banter and chemistry between the love interests! If this book was nothing but the two of them teasing each other for 300 pages, I would still rave about it. But then, you add the high stakes of the possible end of the world, a found family and self-discovery, and I was sold.

The writing is very accessible and engaging, so you read it a lot quicker than you realize. It is easily a book that I could have read in one sitting if not for self-control and real-life commitments. 

I will be desperately stalking the author's twitter and goodreads page waiting for news on book two!

Lauren Sullivan

I’m always interested in new urban fantasy, so this one, set in an alternate reality New York City and starring a majority Black cast, caught my eye. This is a solidly urban fantasy with a romantic subplot, with an intriguing magic system, lots of found family vibes, and a ton of action.

It’s been three hundred years since magic left the world, and only eight years since Pennrae woke up. A magic-era bounty hunter, going against a prophecy led to her sleeping for nearly three hundred years and waking up to a much different world. But there are signs that magic is re-entering the world in disastrous ways, and it may all link back to a dark magic user that has Penn firmly in his sights. With few allies and little time, can Penn survive long enough to save her friends and the world?

“You should be grateful I enjoy your company so much I’d lie to you.”
“That is a very unstable compliment[.]”

Pennrae’s a fun character. She’s a kickass warrior, someone more used to hunting down bounties than providing security for stodgy museum openings, but she’s adjusting. She’s spent the past eight years getting used to the modern world, and while she appreciates some of the new technological marvels (not the subway, though!) she still misses her old life. She’s cautious by nature, so while she’s made two friends, Gideon and Toji, she hasn’t spoken about her history with them. They’re as close as family, almost, but Penn can’t bring herself to be that vulnerable with them, especially if they don’t believe her.

Her closest relationship is with her familiar, Ashe, a magic era creature who has a limited shapeshifting ability to appear to be a normal dog instead of a large, rideable creature with multiple tales. Penn’s a Shaper who can manipulate metals and wood, something she puts to use making little sculptures to sell at Gideon’s store, but for the most part, she ignores her magic-era training and works as a teacher at a local dojo. It’s there she meets Callan, a fellow instructor, and initially she thinks he’s a jerk who can’t help showing off. But appearances can be deceiving, and it’s clear her initial impression is off the mark. The romance subplot between them is fun and full of lots of banter, though it did feel overshadowed by the rest of the book.

The magic system was complex and interesting. There’s not a lot of info-dumping so it takes a while to get a good explanation of how it works. Basically, there’s five classes of Talent magic: Tamers who raise and manage animals or plants; Temporals, time manipulators; Conjurers, who create and control magical constructs; Shapers, who manipulate physical objects; and Diviners, who use holy, celestial magic. Each had a corresponding nexus point that opened under a certain celestial alignment, and you had to be born while that point was open in order to have that magic. Every three hundred years or so, all of the nexus points open at once in a phenomenon called the Auraxa Reiv. The last one, and its surplus of magic, is what led to Penn sleeping for so long as opposed to just a few days. A Necromajin, a dark magic user, had used the opening to create a giant construct that basically had started to destroy the world, so the Diviners trapped it and then sealed all the nexuses, removing magic from the world. With the next Auraxa Reiv due soon, no one, least of all Penn, knows how the world will be affected.

It’s hard to go into too much more without spoiling something. There’s a lot of twists and red herrings, and much like Penn, a lot of things aren’t what they initially seem. There’s a ton of action, and it almost felt sometimes like Penn couldn’t take a breath before something new happened. I would’ve liked more time with Penn and Callan developing their relationship and maybe a few less twists, but in general I felt the pacing worked.

“I’m not afraid of your darkness if you aren’t afraid of mine.”

Overall, I’d give this three and a half stars. It’s definitely got some of that “first book in a series” things going on, so I’ll be very interested to see what happens in the next book!

I received an advance review copy of this book from Grey's Promotions. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Content notes: (view spoiler)[violence (including death), death of parents and siblings (some on-page), car accident (with life-threatening injuries), grief, trauma (hide spoiler)]

danielle bush

Pennrae just wants to be a normal person and live a normal life... but thats a bit hard when she woke up 8 years ago after being put into a magical sleep for 300 years.. 
In this world magic was a real thing, but hasn't been around for along time.. it was the magic era.. now they have street fairs and musems all dedicated to what the magic era must have been like. When Penn and her friends attend one of these fairs, she doesn't expect anyone to be weilding real magic.. after all she is the only one left who should even have any... but when a magical fire being is conjured up out of nowhere and starts attacking Penn knows its real.. she can feel it. 
Turns out there are at least a few people out there who can also weild magic, which seems to be spiriling out of control.. Penn ends up getting tasked with figuring out what the heck is going on. 

I really liked the magic system, it was very unique. I also liked that even though the current world isn't supposed to have any magic, knowledge of it wasn't forgotten.. People can even test their DNA to see if they have magic in their ancestry. 
There are a whole lot of twists and turns that I didn't see coming, and a whole lot of emotional stuff that goes down that really makes you feel for all of the characters

Magic Dark, Magic Divine

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