Shadow Magic by Nazri Noor
Series: Darkling Mage #1
Rating: ★★★☆☆
The gods are dying. But for one man, death is only the beginning.
Murdered as a ritual sacrifice, amateur thief and professional charmer Dustin Graves mysteriously survives, finding himself gifted with strange, dark magic. Then more dead bodies turn up. Some are human, but one is a god of the old world, slain at his own doorstep.
Mortal or divine, the bloodshed must end, and Dust is the mage for the job. But first he must contend with a succubus, a talking sword, a spider queen, a goddess of magic, and eldritch abominations from beyond the stars. No big deal… right?
“No, that stench came from the third corpse. The one that had a man’s body, but the unmistakeable dead red eyes, whiskered muzzle, and matted fur of a rodent. It was half man, and half giant rat.
Yeah. Just another day on the job.”
Color me surprised. If I hadn’t known in advance that this was a self-published book, I would not have guessed. The writing flows smoothly, the cover art is pretty great, there are no glaring grammatical or spelling errors. Overall it was a decent read. The three stars is for the fact that urban fantasy isn’t really my thing, but I can see it being hugely enjoyable for someone who enjoys the genre more than I do.
The book is set in modern-day California. It’s the standard “magic exists but nobody knows about it” kind of thing. Dustin Graves is a Hound for magical organization called the Lorica. That’s to say, he finds shit for them. One night on a routine job, he stumbles onto the corpse, and all hell breaks loose.
It was a really enjoyable read. Dustin is a good narrator. I didn’t find him boring. He doesn’t try too hard to be clever or witty, but he’s a fairly snarky character all the same, which I like. There are no characters that particularly got on my nerves, and there’s plenty of action to keep things going. I could use some more introspection, but this really is not that type of book. Overall, a solid book.
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