I’ve had a copy of Celine Jeanjean‘s Touched by Magic for a few years now. I almost certainly picked it up as a freebie, possibly during a “Stuff Your Kindle” event.

I’m Apiya. No, I’m not a badass magical assassin. I’m a barber to the supernatural.

My magic is very weak and very niche—it works best with keeping things clean.
I know. I can sense your awe at my power already. And I’m sure you can see why barbering suits me well.

Although now that I’ve mastered the art of trimming a weretiger’s regrowth, my biggest challenge is fielding the insults of the shop’s cat. Sometimes I wish I had enough magic to go deeper into the city’s magical underbelly.

You know what they say—be careful what you wish for.

Everything changes when a pair of forest fae come into the shop one night, asking for help to protect their youngling. Something’s got them properly spooked, but they won’t say what.

If it’s big and bad enough to scare the fae, it’s most definitely powerful enough to make a mouthful of me—probably a small mouthful, at that. And now that the fae have come to me, whatever’s after them is also after me.

My weak magic and a sarcastic cat for backup are unlikely to be enough to keep me alive and save the fae youngling.

There is someone who’s willing to help me—Sarroch. Arrogant, unpleasant, wealthy, and I don’t even know what kind of magical creature he is beneath his human form. Or what his motives are in offering to help.

I have no idea if I can trust him, but I’m so short on allies, I might not have a choice. I just hope I’m not making a huge mistake…

I enjoyed this. The main character and her BFF banter pleasantly, and being a weak magic user among stronger mythical creatures feels relatable (as much as fantasy can). However, at 188 pages, it is shorter than the genre’s norm, and I thought that it was underdeveloped. (Two things that feel related.) It could have used those extra pages to thinken the plot, further develop the characters (and their relationship to and among one another), and sketch out the wider world the events are set in. As it reads now, I liked the main character, and the setting seems interesting. But I was never particularly invested. Plus, the mystery is solved very easily, by accident basically. This makes it the sort of series I’d pick up as freebies, but I probably wouldn’t buy it. So, a pretty middle-of-the-road read. Absolutely better than some, but not stellar either.

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#SPFBO X: Review: Touched by Magic (Razor’s Edge Chronicles #1) by Celine Jeanjean