Book Review: Illicit Magic, by Camilla Chafer

If you enjoyed recent best-seller A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness, you’ll probably enjoy Illicit Magic, by Camilla Chafer. If you didn’t enjoy Discovery . . . well, I’ll get to that. A clear protagonist with a strong voice creates a sense of connection and flow throughout the story, spiced up by threatening antagonists and numerous secrets, while a mildly static romance and dragging middle tend to make one skim ahead. Illicit Magic builds an intriguing world. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see as much of it as I would have liked.

Stella Mayweather—which translates to Star of Spring Weather—comes off as a likeable, smart protagonist. Although she claims no one likes her because she is ‘weird’, all we see is a normal, lonely young woman. Though orphaned at a young age, she’s no Harry Potter. In fact, as someone who has read pretty much all the popular fantasy written in the past ten years, I can’t really put my finger on who Stella reminds me of. She’s independent without being off-putting, young without being immature, and smart without being overbearing. In fact, I can’t think of a single flaw Stella possesses.

That may or may not be a good thing.

Onto the plot. We first meet Stella in London, where a pack of witch-hunters known as the Brotherhood are, well, hunting witches. As they firebomb her apartment (these ain’t yo mama’s witch hunters), the stylish Étoile Winterstorm (Star of Winter Weather) materializes and whisks Stella away to New York in the nick of time. Here, Stella meets Robert and Eleanor Bartholomew, whose names have no meaning and who lead the powerful Witches Council. Their son, Marc, who has no magic of his own, comes across as a sad supporting character struggling to find his place in the world. He and Stella quickly bond.

At a meeting of the Witches Council, we learn that Stella is the “last of the English witches”. This line made me shiver (and I was sitting in my hot tub when I read it, too). For a group of thugs up against supernatural beings, the Brotherhood is pretty effective—and even more so when they (or somebody) stages an attack on the Council meeting. The target is unknown, but the Council decides it’s best to ship Stella off to a safe house where she can learn to use her magic while protected from the Brotherhood. Oh, and Marc kisses her.

So we have this great set-up: young woman being chased by serial killers and other unknowns across the globe for no apparent reason, falling for a man who can’t protect her at all. Unfortunately, then we get to this safe house—which is so safe nothing really happens there until the end.

Stella spends a great deal of this section of the book mooning over Evan, her handsome as hell teacher of magic. Evan is tall, muscular, handsome, single, and powerful. He and Stella have a lot in common. Neither of them have flaws. When Stella finally gives him her V-card, the sex is so perfectly wonderful I wanted Evan to fart or something, just to make him seem human (which—spoiler—he isn’t). Stella plays volleyball on the beach, makes a bunch of good friends, and finds an amazing  boyfriend. While that’s great in real life, it doesn’t work so well in literature. The conflict from before is gone. I found myself skimming pages.

The book ends with a sharp, intriguing twist—I won’t give it away, but it’s good. The middle of the book could have been used a lot more to build up to the end. Mysteries abound: Who is the Brotherhood? What do they want? What happened to Stella’s parents? What is Evan? Why doesn’t Marc have magic? Where’s Étoile’s missing sister? I wished Stella had been sitting in the driver’s seat, searching for answers. Unfortunately, she doesn’t remember which side of the road Americans drive on and got in the wrong door.

High points: The clearly established antagonist. The Brotherhood’s a creepy group, which I wish we’d seen more of. The voice. Stella’s got a clear handle on her side of the story. The mystery. I really did want to have my questions answers. The clear ending. It felt like most major threads had been resolved, with a nice twist. Marc’s character. You have to feel sorry for the poor guy.

Low points: Stella’s relationship with Evan. There’s no conflict here. Action scenes. During one dramatic fight scene, while under attack from a clear enemy, one secondary character pauses to tell the entire backstory of another secondary character. The sex. There was nothing unique about it.

Did I like this book? Eh. Would I read it again? Probably not. Would I recommend it to the target demographic (women who like light fantasy and romance)? Yeah. It’s not a bad story. It just needs more conflict in the middle. Conflict the readers care about. My rating? In the adult light fantasy/romance category, I’d give it four stars out of five. As a novel? Three and a half.

--Liz Ellor, O43

Download the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Illicit-Stella-Mayweather-Paranormal-ebook/dp/B004YWKGPO/ref=la_B004RZC3EK_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1342558965&sr=1-3