I’ve been on a fae kick lately so I grabbed Illegal Magic from the Amazon free list.
Description from Goodreads:
What do you get when you mix magic & lawyers?
More than you bargained for.
Lani’s family has magic. Her friends have magic. Even the plants in her community are magical. But Lani’s powers never manifest, and she’s tired of feeling like the odd one out. So she goes to law school and does her best to fit in with the non-magical world.
Too bad her first client is a geeky vampire. And her second client is an evil sorcerer. And her smoking hot one night stand doesn’t remember her name.
If Lani survives her first week of work, she’s gonna seriously consider a career change.
Illegal Magic starts with a magical bash. Lani’s family pulls out the works for a no-holds-bared party to celebrate her success at becoming a lawyer. Spells, mythical creatures and lost inhibitions abound. It was like Harry Potter on crack. There was a serious moment in which I paused and thought, “oh, this is gonna be BAD.” Lucky, after the first chapter or so it settled down, though it still reminded me of a grown up Happy Potter. Lani’s parents could easily have been Molly and Arthur Weasly. Ron was a baker named Kalvin. Hermine was actually some odd amalgamation of Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom (a pretty, spacey gardener named Dana), and good ‘ol Harry was still brave in the face of danger, even if he did have breasts and no magic.
This is not a book that takes itself seriously, nor should it be taken too seriously by any reader. Look too deeply and you start to wonder how exactly the magic users could live practically among the rest of humanity and not know what a car is or that grocery stores exist. Plus, a number of the plots elements are bare substructures with no substance. Why exactly is Fellion following Lani around incessantly, for example? I spent 95% of the book thinking that he didn’t even remember her. But if you are willing to suspend your critical thinking for the duration of the story it is extremely funny. Poor Lani’s perpetual frustration, sharp tongue, and insane surrounding are pure joy.
I also really appreciated that Blakely didn’t suddenly allow Lani to develop magic out of the blue. That is such a common occurrence in fantasy novels. The main character is lacking in some fashion only to then suddenly become the strongest of them all. It reeks of over-simplicity. Lani hadn’t had magic from birth and unless someone or something gives it to her I don’t see why it should suddenly appear, even if that allows a problem to wrap up nicely. Blakely maintains Lani’s non-magic status, thereby refusing to give her an easy out and forcing her to develop as a character. It was far more satisfying that way.
This is obviously the first of a series. A number of threads were left open for further development. I’m looking forward to the continuation.