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Merely Magic (Magic #1)

3.81 of 5 stars 3.81 · rating details · 204 ratings · 28 reviews

In a lovely cottage there lives a beautiful woman called Ninian who yearns for a family of her own—but whose magical gifts make her too "strange" to be loved by any local lad.

In a castle tower there lives a dark aristocrat called Drogo who studies the stars, seeking rational explanations for perplexing mysteries—unaware that his life is about to be turned upside down by a...more

Paperback, 384 pages

Published July 1st 2000 by Signet (first published June 26th 2000)

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Apr 25, 2011 Judy & Marianne from Long and Short Reviews rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What do you get when you mix one part witch, one part curmudgeon, and one part annoying family? An amazing story about love, family, and magic. Come join Ninian on her magical journey from the country to London and back again as she tries and tames the forbidden Ives clan. Many magical and mysterious surprises await ahead!

Ninian is the most recent in a long line of Malcom witches, women who use the bounty of the earth to heal and help those around them. She’s also one of the most unique heroine...more

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Apr 01, 2011 April rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-romance-regency-england, magice

MERELY MAGIC by Patricia Rice is an amazing,witty historical romance with a touch of magic set in 1750 Northumberland, England.It is a re-issued titled.The plot is enchanting,easy to follow,well developed and intriguing.The characters are engaging,enchanting,believable and will capture your heart. This is the story of Ninian,a beautiful healer,a little essentic,a famous Malcolm,Innocent,lonely,has little bit of magic and is drawn to aristocratic Drogo.Who is handsome,an aristocrat,an Ives,a man...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Kristi (Books and Needlepoint) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: arcs

This book pulled me in from the beginning. Even the setting is magical - a village in the woods, secluded. Everything sounded lush and green, until they discovered that something was poisoning the water. Ninian discovers this just as she meets Drogo - because the stream is on his property that she collects her plants from for her cures. She is the local healer - it is what she was born to do and all that she knows. Even the villagers steer clear of her unless they have need of her potions.

Drogo...more

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Mar 04, 2011 Bookaholics rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Merely Magic by Patricia Rice
Historical Romance - March 1st, 2011
3 stars

Ninian is a witch, the last Malcolm to stay in the village Wystan. Even though she has watched over the villagers and healed those who were sick, Ninian has never been one of them. Instead she’s an outsider as the people will never forget that she’s a Malcolm - a witch. After generations of neglect, Lord Drogo Ives, the earl who owned the land, shows up out of the blue to stay at the castle. Drogo wants to leave London and...more

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Mar 04, 2011 Linda Banche rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Logic and emotion collide in Patricia Rice's rich Georgian paranormal MERELY MAGIC, a story of the importance of being true to oneself and of letting people live their own lives.

Malcolm women and Ives men do not mix. Sequestered in her isolated little village, healer and empath Ninian, one of the long line of Malcolm witches, has never met an Ives. And then Drogo, the long-absent Earl of Ives, arrives at his castle. The uber-responsible slave to logic Drogo is taking a break from picking up the...more

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Feb 24, 2011 Mikaela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-paranormal-romance

The Book: Merely Magic by Patricia Rice

The Particulars: Historical Fantasy Romance, Sourcebooks, available both in print and e-book

Why was it in my TBR? Because I wanted to something to cheer me up

The Review:

The blurb:
With exhilarating wit, sensuality, and emotion, bestselling author Patricia Rice offers an enchanting historical romance. When a magical young woman meets a dark aristocrat in a moonlit forest, neither dreams that a strange and powerful love is about to change their lives forever.....more

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Mar 24, 2011 Staci rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Staci by: Sourcebooks

Shelves: 2011-reads

My First Reaction When I Finished:

Hmmmmm.....well, that was interesting.

My Review:
I really had hoped for so much more than what I got with this one. For some reason none of the characters made a connection for me. I found the romance to be forced and I just didn't care for the storyline. At times I actually found the story hard to follow...yes, I know it's a romance so why would I have a hard time following it???? Well, too many characters and a plot that just didn't interest me.

Do I recommend?...more

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Mar 01, 2011 Jen (That's What I'm Talking About) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical

Ninian is an outsider in her small village. Although she grew up among the villagers and counts some as friends, the legend of the Malcolm witches keep the superstitious denizens at a cautious distance. On the night of the Beltane, Ninian watches the villagers from a far before moving on to collect some herbs. On her walk she discovers that Lord Drogo, the Earl of Ives, has moved into the Wystan castle - the first Ives to live there in generations. She is instantly taken with the dark stranger,...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Somer rated it 2 of 5 stars

I don’t have a lot to say about this book, because it was just a nice story. A nice story that didn’t really compel me to read it at every chance I got. It took me well over a week to read. This book is exactly what you would expect in a historical romance. You have a young, naive yet strong, heroine. Then there is the moody, brooding, mysterious love interest. Of course these two completely butt heads on everything, yet something pulls them together. They each learn things from each other and g...more

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Jan 05, 2012 Cecilia rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is a bizarre mishmash of elements - tortured hero, cutie-pie magic and abstracted heroine, thinking-positive-thoughts that actually affects the outcome of a trial, rapy tangential villains, mysterious did-he-or-didn’t-he-kill-his-wife plot involving only secondary characters (the victim being a character who never actually appears), 18th-century proto-environmentalism, and a protagonist couple that competes at which of them can think the other is stupid with the most frequency (I'd say...more This book is a bizarre mishmash of elements - tortured hero, cutie-pie magic and abstracted heroine, thinking-positive-thoughts that actually affects the outcome of a trial, rapy tangential villains, mysterious did-he-or-didn’t-he-kill-his-wife plot involving only secondary characters (the victim being a character who never actually appears), 18th-century proto-environmentalism, and a protagonist couple that competes at which of them can think the other is stupid with the most frequency (I'd say the hero wins, hands down).

Merely Magic was one of the most artificial and inconsistent romances I've ever read. For one thing, the hero is constantly harping on how logical he is and how illogical she is. If my name were Inigo Montoya, I would only be able to say to him, “You keep using that word. I do not think this word means what you think it means.” For example: when his brother says to him (trying to convince the hero to mistrust his entirely kind and loyal wife), “When was the last time an Ives could trust his wife?” the hero reflects, “There the question stood in all its stark cold logic, asked by the latest victim of an entire string of failed Ives marriages dating back generations.” Um, no, actually I’m pretty sure that the question is an example of a logical fallacy, and emotional manipulation, but nevertheless, despite his constant equation of his emotional reactions with logic, the hero in this book is constantly held up as some kind of intellectual giant.

Another kind of inconsistency is in the narrative itself. Aside from the overwritten sentences with bizarre syntax (“Handsome enough already to have proved his Ives ability to procreate, Ewen crouched on the overgrown drive and attached a gear to what appeared to be a junk heap of scrap metal.”), there are scenes that mood-wise, don’t make any sense. For example, Ninian (the heroine with a gift for supernatural-level empathy) notes on leaving a haunted room that it “[reeks] of anguish and anger,” but never at any point during the preceding scene there does her behaviour give any indication that she’s perceiving anything negative at all. Instead, she’s incongruously cheerful: “her dimples appeared in a bewilderingly unreadable smile,” and she shows “her dancing dimples” and inspires the hero to want to “kiss the mischief off her rosy lips.” WTH? Another example would be when moments after the hero asks her “Why do you insist on believing in superstitious nonsense,” the heroine internally praises the hero for his “open mind that did not exclude her as so many others did.” Again, WTH? As the book is filled with details that seem randomly included, there’s no sense of authenticity in any of the scenes or characters.

Added to the mire of inconsistency are descriptions that just made me want to laugh out loud. It was sometimes because of made-up words like “cacaphonic,” and it was sometimes because of some pretty turgid love-scene moments, such as the reassurance that our intellectual giant hero is no mere pocket protector-wearing geek: “Here was no studious scientist but a stallion in the prime of life, willing and able to service any mare he cornered.” Or, even better: “Moisture pooled in her womb, and her body readied itself for this act she’d never expected to know.” Oh, baby.

Mostly, though, what made this book an ordeal to get through (while at the same time commanding my attention in the same way a traffic accident would), was the constant harping on how bad women are – they’re constantly being described as using machinations, wiles, etc. for the purposes of gaining wealth and status, or deceiving a man into believing another man’s child was his own, or just because they're bored. They’re hellcats, they’re “whining women” that a man must endeavour to avoid “saddling” himself with. Despite the fact that men are apparently helpless victims of women’s scheming, though, women are apparently also pretty thick. When the hero isn’t mistrusting the heroine, he’s dismissing her intelligence – she’s addlepated, a simpleton, crackbrained, illogical, a lunatic, a moonchild. From the perspectives of the female characters, there’s not a great deal more respect for women. The heroine occasionally tries to assert herself, but mostly in a fairly passive way, waiting for the hero to figure out that she actually does know something. Even the heroine describes her (female) family as “pampered” and “light-minded” and this is despite the fact that she knows what their magical abilities are – they helped her in that chanting thing that saved the hero’s bacon in a lawsuit, and later help bring him back to life. Things eventually improve over the course of the book, with the hero becoming more willing to trust the heroine, but this is only in the last 10% or so (and things are not entirely improved, though – the heroine’s condescending description of her family comes in that last stretch, and he's calling her crackbrained right to the end). This and the previous 90% of the book just makes me shake my head; I don’t think I’ve read a romance that felt so overwhelmingly misogynistic in a long time.

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Mar 06, 2011 Samantha rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In Merely Magic, Ninian is leading a lonely secluded life as a healer in the village that she lives in. But the villagers call her a witch and although they come to her for help with sickness and in pain, they keep her at a distance from fear of her so-called powers. Drogo has just arrived at his family estate in the country and wants nothing more than finishing the business that he needs to get done and going back home to the city. But when Ninian and Drogo meet, old legends warn of their two f...more In Merely Magic, Ninian is leading a lonely secluded life as a healer in the village that she lives in. But the villagers call her a witch and although they come to her for help with sickness and in pain, they keep her at a distance from fear of her so-called powers. Drogo has just arrived at his family estate in the country and wants nothing more than finishing the business that he needs to get done and going back home to the city. But when Ninian and Drogo meet, old legends warn of their two families uniting which doesn't seem to stop the growing attraction between them.

I was in the mood for a good romance which is why I was looking forward to reading this book. But I couldn't quite connect with the characters which unfortunately took away from the reading experience for me. I actually liked Ninian's character for the most part although I would have liked to see her have a bit more of a backbone. I couldn't connect with Drogo's character at all though, and I had a hard time understanding some of his motivations and decisions. He frustrated me at times because he could be so hardheaded which led me to become a bit detached from the book. The storyline itself was both unique and interesting. Ninian's "gift" as she referred to it wasn't something that played a huge part in the story but it helped to draw me in. I wanted to know more about what she could do and liked how the author included the ways that she could read other people's emotions and feelings. I also liked the legend about the two families and wanted to know more about the history between these two families. The question was never answered as to why the families couldn't unite. The ending did leave me with a few questions and I was left wondering if there were any more books written by this author featuring some of these characters. I would definitely be interested in reading it if there was.

Although this wasn't my favorite romance, it turned out to be an okay read for me that I liked but didn't love. I'm looking forward to reading more by this author in the future as her books are rereleased.(less)

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Mar 10, 2011 Angelc rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved the two leads in this magical romance. Drogo was so studious and responsible. There were so many people who depended on him to take care of them. Two of his stepsister's friends even ended up living in his home because they had no where to go and Drogo couldn't say no. The author wove this trait of his into the story in many intricate ways and I loved to watch it affect his decision making. For one, Drogo had such trouble realizing that Ninian could love him because she was fiercely inde...more

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Jun 11, 2011 Ginger rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an old favorite in a new cover...I like the Malcolm witches and the Ives men...this is the first of the series and I am thinking of rereading the others again. I think the only complaint I have is the word "warlock" in relation to male witches, poor things, I don't think they deserve the label even in fiction, no male witch I know wouldn't be offended...good thing most of em don't read romance lol.

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Mar 08, 2011 Michele bookloverforever rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: paranormal-rom, thriller

I found this to be a really slow starter. However, after the first 100 pages the plot started to move and flow. The hero finally wised up and ended up loving the earth witch he had married and they end up saving a village. The heroine finally found her backbone but it took awhile. I liked the peripheral characters a lot.

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Oct 30, 2011 Mara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: romance

A full fluffy but romantic read.

No magic to talk about (even the heroine is not sure if she has any magic at all :), but a solid romance. The book tells the story of what happens after the "magic" (you may call it fated destiny or mating or chosen...) is achieved and the couple struggles with their difference.

I expected something slightly different, but I liked it anyway.

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Jan 19, 2012 Anne Violet rated it 5 of 5 stars

My favorite historical of Patricia Rice so sexy, romantic and unique. I love that she doesn't make the hero and heroine model gorgeous, yet they are still attractive. She's an amazing writer.

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May 13, 2013 Anabella rated it 5 of 5 stars

Hermosa novela!!! un poco desquiciante al principio porque la autora es demasiado detallista y descriptiva pero la trama, el romance y los personajes están increíbles; perfectamente recomendado para aquellos que aman las novelas históricas-románticas :D

Lo curioso fue que en esta versión leí capítulos y escenas que no estaban en la versión que leí en el español y viceversa, por lo que no sé cuantas versiones hay de la novela, sin embargo ambas me fascinaron, sobretodo el final de ésta última, que...more

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Oct 19, 2012 ROMANTIC HISTORICAL REVIEW BLOG rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: heat-rating-moderate, paranormal-or-time-travel-elements

Reviewed by Lila at Romantic Historical Lovers:
http://romantichistoricallovers.wordp...

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Jan 29, 2011 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-romance, paranormal-romance, romance

*four and a HALF stars*

A wonderfully told story full of passion, romance, and magic. I read another review that said Patricia Rice is a master storyteller and I couldn't agree more. You will fall in love with the characters and become so immersed in their story that you'll forget your reading and think you're living it.

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Aug 08, 2012 Dana Rose rated it 4 of 5 stars

really enjoyed the story, as a historical romance with a touch of magic, the book just flowed, loved it.

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Jun 24, 2012 Krista rated it 3 of 5 stars

I needed some nice fluff after the last few depressing books!

A cute, fluffy story, very enjoyable read.

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Dec 02, 2011 Alycia marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-romance, pnr-uf

Sourcebooks deal, .99 on Kindle.

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Aug 11, 2011 Lady Lioness marked it as keepers

Den Cabinets

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Feb 06, 2013 Tabetha Waite rated it 1 of 5 stars

I didn't care for this book because it was more of a paranormal novel than an historical, even if it was written in the past tense. The story started out promising, but then it took a turn that I didn't care to finish.

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Dec 04, 2011 Kristin marked it as flounced

Shelves: paranormal, romantic-fools, witches

Totally did not connect with the characters.

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May 04, 2013 Ellen Marie added it

It was a delightful story, as are all of her Magic series books. I see a lot of negative comments, so maybe you have to be into the psychic field to truly enjoy it.

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Jun 20, 2012 Summer rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-finish, historical-romance, magic, paranormal, paranormal-romance, romance

Not my cup of tea, I just couldn't care about the characters.

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May 22, 2012 Ellen Blend rated it 5 of 5 stars

She is definitely a master story teller.

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Oct 28, 2011 Atunah marked it as own-tbr

Shelves: european-historical-romance, kindle-own-paid, kindle-sale-price, paranormal-romance, series-next-up, historical-romance, purchased-2011

On sale 10/28/11 for 99 cents.

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May 17, 2013 Beth Dickey marked it as to-read

Shelves: own-to-read

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About Patricia Rice

With several million books in print and New York Times and USA Today's bestseller lists under her belt, former CPA Patricia Rice writes emotionally-charged contemporary and historical romances which have won numerous awards, including the RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice and Career Achievement Awards.

Her books have also been honored as Romance Writers of America RITA® finalists in the historical,...more

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Merely Magic (Magic #1)

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