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Magic for Liars
by
Ivy Gamble has never wanted to be magical. She is perfectly happy with her life. She has an almost-sustainable career as a private investigator, and an empty apartment, and a slight drinking problem. It's a great life and she doesn't wish she was like her estranged sister, the magically gifted professor Tabitha.
But when Ivy is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a ...more
But when Ivy is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a ...more
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Sarah Gailey
No, Magic for Liars is a standalone. :)
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30
Start your review of Magic for Liars
Mar 18, 2019
chai ♡
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
adult-contemporary,
adult,
adult-sff,
fiction,
read-in-2019,
lgbtq-rep,
2019-releases,
lgbtq-ff
Ivy Gamble is not magic.
She will not be whisked away to train in a magician’s school where she will have all the glory her teeth can snatch. She is not the Chosen One, standing over her peers like a towering peak—all the possibilities of life, death, and magic spinning in her head. Instead, she will end up dragging her hopes behind her like a chastised child dragging her stuffed bear thumping up the stairs. Her life will settle into a humdrum rhythm, and some forty years later, she will be scrap ...more
She will not be whisked away to train in a magician’s school where she will have all the glory her teeth can snatch. She is not the Chosen One, standing over her peers like a towering peak—all the possibilities of life, death, and magic spinning in her head. Instead, she will end up dragging her hopes behind her like a chastised child dragging her stuffed bear thumping up the stairs. Her life will settle into a humdrum rhythm, and some forty years later, she will be scrap ...more
(2.75) Murder mystery in a magical school? Sounds right up my alley!
Sadly I ended up being a bit bored. The story simply wasn't very memorable. ...more
Sadly I ended up being a bit bored. The story simply wasn't very memorable. ...more
Sep 27, 2017
Elle (ellexamines)
rated it
it was amazing
Shelves:
elle-recs-list,
y-2019releases,
z-2019favs,
mystery-suspense,
5-star,
z-2019reads,
sff-specfic
Magic for Liars follows private investigator Ivy Gamble as she investigates a death in the Osthorne Academy for Young Mages, the workplace of her sister and a location she has envied for years. While she’s living a life she thinks of as simple, her sister is a famous and talented teacher. It is a murder mystery wrapped up in an interesting commentary on chosen one tropes and sibling rivalry, and it had me engrossed from start to finish.
The thing I find the most entertaining about this book, in ...more
The thing I find the most entertaining about this book, in ...more
Ahoy there me mateys! I received this fantasy eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here be me honest musings . . .
I was excited to read this full-length novel from the author who brought us hippo cowboys. This is a murder mystery set in a magical school. Ivy is a professional PI that spends her time investigating cheaters and such. She has always been upset that her twin sister got the magic and glory and she got the grit and mundane. But this murder mystery could be th ...more
I was excited to read this full-length novel from the author who brought us hippo cowboys. This is a murder mystery set in a magical school. Ivy is a professional PI that spends her time investigating cheaters and such. She has always been upset that her twin sister got the magic and glory and she got the grit and mundane. But this murder mystery could be th ...more
2, how did a Veronica Mars/Harry Potter mash up end up flopping so hard stars!
Full review featured on my blog Recipe and a Read!
Ivy and Tabitha Gamble are twins. They share parents, DNA, a home and a childhood full of beautiful, loving and happy memories. What they don’t share, is magic. Tabitha (Tabby), Ivy’s twin sister is gifted with powers beyond either of their imaginations and upon their inception Tabby is whisked away to a modern day Hogwarts and eventually begins teaching Theoretical Ma ...more
Full review featured on my blog Recipe and a Read!
Ivy and Tabitha Gamble are twins. They share parents, DNA, a home and a childhood full of beautiful, loving and happy memories. What they don’t share, is magic. Tabitha (Tabby), Ivy’s twin sister is gifted with powers beyond either of their imaginations and upon their inception Tabby is whisked away to a modern day Hogwarts and eventually begins teaching Theoretical Ma ...more
4 stars!
This was a fun read for me! 1. I got to read something that's completely out of my comfort zone - sci-fi and fantasy (with a bit of mystery) 2. I got to buddy read this with my husband!
Ivy is a detective but right n ...more
It might take a little while to get there, but I'll tell you everything, and I'll tell you the truth. As best I can. I used to lie, but when I tell you the story, you'll understand why I had to lie. You'll understand that I didn't have a choice. I just wanted to do my job.
This was a fun read for me! 1. I got to read something that's completely out of my comfort zone - sci-fi and fantasy (with a bit of mystery) 2. I got to buddy read this with my husband!
Ivy is a detective but right n ...more
This book didn't work well for me... I wasn't really interested by what was going on.
It was very predictable, but I wanted to finish it just in case, you know? In case something incredible would happen and the ending would satisfy me.
The story lacked the magic feeling I was looking for. I skipped the parts where the spells were explained, I thought it was too complicated and it didn't mean anything to me.
On the positive side, I appreciated reading about Ivy's relationships with her sister and w ...more
It was very predictable, but I wanted to finish it just in case, you know? In case something incredible would happen and the ending would satisfy me.
The story lacked the magic feeling I was looking for. I skipped the parts where the spells were explained, I thought it was too complicated and it didn't mean anything to me.
On the positive side, I appreciated reading about Ivy's relationships with her sister and w ...more
2.5 stars
What a bipolar reading experience this was.
Initially I was doubtful that a story set in a magic school would interest me but once I started I REALLY enjoyed it…… until I didn’t.
It’s such a pity that Ivy turned out to kill my joy with her incessant whining and insecurities about her inability to do magic. The author repeated this fact one too many times for my liking.
What I do think was done well is the way the complex relationship between Ivy and her twin sister Tabitha was portrayed.
Th ...more
What a bipolar reading experience this was.
Initially I was doubtful that a story set in a magic school would interest me but once I started I REALLY enjoyed it…… until I didn’t.
It’s such a pity that Ivy turned out to kill my joy with her incessant whining and insecurities about her inability to do magic. The author repeated this fact one too many times for my liking.
What I do think was done well is the way the complex relationship between Ivy and her twin sister Tabitha was portrayed.
Th ...more
Jun 02, 2019
Bee
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
5-stars,
arcs-read,
read-in-2019,
favorites,
audiobook,
queer,
queer-fantasy,
physical-copy
Magic for Liars isn't what I expected it to be. I had impressions from other early readers that it would be along the lines of a murder-mystery in Hogwarts, which turned out to be less-than-accurate. Instead, Magic for Liars is about the lies we tell ourselves, and each other. It is about the disastrous things that result from these lies, no matter how well-meaning they were, or how innocent they seemed.
It begins with the gruesome death of a staff member at The Osthorne Academy for Young Mages. ...more
It begins with the gruesome death of a staff member at The Osthorne Academy for Young Mages. ...more
The cover and synopsis and title of the novel were all immediately intriguing to me. Magic for Liars is a murder mystery on a magical high school campus, told from the perspective of the nonmagical private eye who finds herself on the case. You can see why I was intrigued, right? Noir novels can be very hit or miss, but this one was definitely a hit. It was everything I was hoping for, and more than I was expecting.
Ivy Gamble is a wonderfully developed character. She comes across a bit as a down ...more
Ivy Gamble is a wonderfully developed character. She comes across a bit as a down ...more
Books that are billed as “like The Magicians” are never like The Magicians in the right ways for me, but this is both like The Magicians in that “magic is actually kind of weird and gross and real” way, and it’s a compelling whodunnit besides. The solution was perhaps a tad obvious, but the emotional weight with which the mystery is treated–it is deeply rooted in the characters’ past traumas and dysfunctions and insecurities–made that matter less. The narrative voice is arresting, and the noir a
...more
Apr 24, 2020
The Artisan Geek
added it
24/4/20
Pretty good! I enjoyed the goriness of bodies being exploded, but the story didn't feel all that believable to me. Imagine going to Hogwarts as a muggle and people not knowing you didn't have an ounce of magic in you -- you wouldn't even be able to talk yourself out of your lack of knowledge...
You can find me on
Youtube | Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Website ...more
Pretty good! I enjoyed the goriness of bodies being exploded, but the story didn't feel all that believable to me. Imagine going to Hogwarts as a muggle and people not knowing you didn't have an ounce of magic in you -- you wouldn't even be able to talk yourself out of your lack of knowledge...
You can find me on
Youtube | Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Website ...more
Magic For Liars may be set at a school of magic, but we're on notice from the very first page that this is not THAT kind of school:
After a bloody murder at Osthorne Academy for Young Mages (located in ...more
Now they were all downstairs at the welcome-back dinner, an all-staff-all-students meal that marked the end of the first week of classes. They'd joke there about house-elves and pumpkin juice -- or at least the freshmen would. By the time they were sophomores, that vein of humor was worn beyond use.
After a bloody murder at Osthorne Academy for Young Mages (located in ...more
This time was going to be different. This time was going to be better. This time, I was going to be enough.
Like so many of us readers, Ivy Gamble never had the chance to go to magic school and experience a magical fix for everything wrong in her life. Unlike most of us, she's not really allowed to put the dream aside and move on with life - her twin sister does get that, from her teenage perspective, and when this story begins years later, she's now a hard drinking, hard living PI, who resolutel ...more
Like so many of us readers, Ivy Gamble never had the chance to go to magic school and experience a magical fix for everything wrong in her life. Unlike most of us, she's not really allowed to put the dream aside and move on with life - her twin sister does get that, from her teenage perspective, and when this story begins years later, she's now a hard drinking, hard living PI, who resolutel ...more
I love the combination of magic with a PI and a murder case, so I was looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, I didn't love the book as much as I love the concept.
I have low tolerance for characters (and people) who wallow in self-pity. Ivy, the PI and narrator of this story, is queen of the 'woe is me' category. Her whining is a constant throughout the story. I wanted to give her a shake and tell her to grow up, though with less polite wording.
I loved the way the magic was handled. ...more
I have low tolerance for characters (and people) who wallow in self-pity. Ivy, the PI and narrator of this story, is queen of the 'woe is me' category. Her whining is a constant throughout the story. I wanted to give her a shake and tell her to grow up, though with less polite wording.
I loved the way the magic was handled. ...more
A non-magic (muggle) detective is called to Osthorne Academy for Young Mages (Hogwarts) to investigate the mysterious and gruesome death of one of their teachers. It's also where her sister teaches, so it brings up all sorts of memories and what-ifs for her own life.
I would say within the work of this author, I prefer the alternate history hippos, but this had some clever ideas in it. And it takes place largely in a library. But I hear their next book has a librarian MC so I'm looking forward to ...more
I would say within the work of this author, I prefer the alternate history hippos, but this had some clever ideas in it. And it takes place largely in a library. But I hear their next book has a librarian MC so I'm looking forward to ...more
Remember when The Magicians came on the scene and it was touted as "Harry Potter for Grownups" but was actually "Someone's Bitter They Never Got to Go to Hogwarts or Narnia?"
This book is ACTUALLY Harry Potter for Grownups! With a healthy dose of Hardboiled PI Investigates Murder!
Ivy Gamble is basically Petunia Dursley: the sister of a gifted mage, who had to suffer through the slings and arrows of regular high school, while her twin went to Super Special Magic School and came home prettier . . . ...more
This book is ACTUALLY Harry Potter for Grownups! With a healthy dose of Hardboiled PI Investigates Murder!
Ivy Gamble is basically Petunia Dursley: the sister of a gifted mage, who had to suffer through the slings and arrows of regular high school, while her twin went to Super Special Magic School and came home prettier . . . ...more
3.5 Stars rounded up. Very solid read! This reminded me of a more mature, slightly less fantastical version of Harry Potter, mainly because of the fact this takes place in a school for magic. Our protagonist is what Potter fans would call a muggle, she has no magic, and she is contracted to investigate the murder of a professor at this wonderful School of magic, and what's her twin sister also works at. This had the obvious element of mystery, as we are trying to figure out who dunnit throughout
...more
A solid Urban Fantasy novel: fairly engaging with some attempts at novelty, it didn't ultimately root itself in my brain as overly outstanding.
Here's the gist:
Ivy Gamble had to be content with a life without magic. Her sister Tabitha, though, has always been a natural. Their paths diverged ages ago, with more than a few hard feelings. When the magic school that Tabitha teaches at experiences a suspicious death, they reach out to Ivy – a private detective – to try to determine what happened. Now ...more
Here's the gist:
Ivy Gamble had to be content with a life without magic. Her sister Tabitha, though, has always been a natural. Their paths diverged ages ago, with more than a few hard feelings. When the magic school that Tabitha teaches at experiences a suspicious death, they reach out to Ivy – a private detective – to try to determine what happened. Now ...more
I really enjoyed reading this. A mystery set at a magic school is right up my alley, particularly because the detective, Ivy, is distinctively non-magical and has to solve a case at the school where her estranged twin is teaching. I liked Ivy's voice, and I was particularly drawn into the descriptions of how ordinary the magical high school is (there are several passages about Being a Teenager that rang true and that I appreciated). The author gets away with never quite explaining the rules of t
...more
Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan/Tor-Forge for this arc.
I wish I enjoyed this read more than I did. It sounded like it would be right up my alley. But it just missed out for me. I was so irritated with Ivy's self pity through out the book, that I was tempted to give up by 37%. I found it to be a slow read as it lacked the tension I usually find in murder mysteries and I had a tough time connecting to any of the characters. There was plenty of teenage angst and drama (as expected for a story set ...more
I wish I enjoyed this read more than I did. It sounded like it would be right up my alley. But it just missed out for me. I was so irritated with Ivy's self pity through out the book, that I was tempted to give up by 37%. I found it to be a slow read as it lacked the tension I usually find in murder mysteries and I had a tough time connecting to any of the characters. There was plenty of teenage angst and drama (as expected for a story set ...more
Honestly, I don't know what to exactly rate this because I was thoroughly enjoying it up until the end. The ending was a letdown, to say the least. It was so anticlimactic, even. If it was meant to be a surprise as to who done it, it wasn't. Not even the slightest. The reasoning behind the unexpected event(s), ever so slightly. Some of the red herrings worked but only for a little while. The further you read on, the more obvious everything becomes. Even before the main character can figure it ou
...more
I gobbled this up in a day and that readability and the premise are definitely the strongest pieces here. It's a mystery set at a magic school, I mean come on. I was sold immediately. The overall experience was good, but not great.
Because our protagonist was non-magic, it allowed Gailey to handwave over some of her world-building and some of the rules of magic. I was mostly okay with that while reading-- Ivy didn't understand things so we didn't understand things. After reading, I was more awar ...more
In Magic for Liars, private investigator Ivy Gamble is pulled from her usual beat of tailing cheating spouses into her first homicide investigation, located at a high school for magical children. One of the teachers happens to be her estranged sister, who inherited all of the family's powers and left Ivy with some emotional hangups around magic. Any similarities to, say, Harry Potter quickly disapparate. The school is nestled in contemporary northern California. No castles. Nobody carries magic
...more
I desperately wanted to love it. It was a tragedy in the making.
First, some things I liked
Rahul, the main love interest: He must be protected
Magic teenagers being teenagers: YES magic teens would definitely use their magic for the most utterly juvenile things, including lots of penis clouds. A very strong bit of world building from Gailey.
And then... the bad
Alas, ear wax: I find it... insufferable when books reference Harry Potter more than the teensiest amount. This book was, in part, a correc ...more
First, some things I liked
Rahul, the main love interest: He must be protected
Magic teenagers being teenagers: YES magic teens would definitely use their magic for the most utterly juvenile things, including lots of penis clouds. A very strong bit of world building from Gailey.
And then... the bad
Alas, ear wax: I find it... insufferable when books reference Harry Potter more than the teensiest amount. This book was, in part, a correc ...more
I found this to be a bit of a strange book. It's slow paced in the extreme, and overflowing with mundane description. I'm talking "a few sentences to describe a hand on a doorknob" stuff. And yet...
The level of description did mean that it took me a while to fully immerse myself in the book, but that when I did, I really was immersed in the main character and her story. I've a love for broken things, and this is a story about a broken person trying to mend a broken relationship with her twin sis ...more
The level of description did mean that it took me a while to fully immerse myself in the book, but that when I did, I really was immersed in the main character and her story. I've a love for broken things, and this is a story about a broken person trying to mend a broken relationship with her twin sis ...more
Ivy Gamble is a private investigator and completely non-magical. Her twin sister Tabitha is magical and a teacher at a magic school. They have a strained relationship for all sorts of reasons, but bitter envy is definitely one of them. When there's a murder at Tabitha's school and Ivy gets called in to investigate after the magic police dismiss the case, Ivy has to confront her difficult relationship with both magic and her sister, all while trying to find a murderer.
As a murder mystery, this is ...more
As a murder mystery, this is ...more
A study of grief, seperation and the lies we tell ourselves. Throw in a private detective, a murder and a school for mages and you have one hell of genre mash-up.
Don't come to this expecting your favourite fantasy tropes or big magical battles, this ain't that type of story, and I was glad for it. A great debut novel, I look forward to reading more of Gailey's works
...more
Don't come to this expecting your favourite fantasy tropes or big magical battles, this ain't that type of story, and I was glad for it. A great debut novel, I look forward to reading more of Gailey's works
...more
First, let me say that I had huge expectations for this. I really enjoyed Sarah Gailey's previous works (I've read both short stories in American hippo) and I've been following them on twitter for a while now and always enjoy what they have to say. I pre-ordered this for more than 20€ which makes it my most expensive book this year and I started reading it as soon as it arrived. So all this to say that I was EXCITED. Also of course the cover, the synopsis and even the title of this book all made
...more
I honestly gobbled this story up. It is so readable and well-paced that the story feels smooth and just so easy to read. This is a fantasy mystery - a murder mystery set in a magic school. Our mc is a non-magic PI which I thought was a really interesting perspective for a story about magic school (we usually get a magic-users perspective). And while her perspective was interesting, it was a bit unfortunate that because Ivy didn't understand anything, we as readers didn't understand anything eith
...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Play Book Tag: (Poll Ballot Tally) Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey - 3 stars | 1 | 6 | Nov 03, 2020 08:33AM | |
| Play Book Tag: Magic for Liars - Sarah Gailey (4 1/2 stars) | 1 | 11 | Mar 21, 2020 11:27AM | |
| Bookish First Rea...: Magic for Liars by Sarah Galley | 1 | 5 | Oct 22, 2019 12:39PM | |
| SciFi and Fantasy...: "Magic for Liars" by Sarah Gailey (BR) | 21 | 51 | Sep 18, 2019 10:17AM |
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“This time was going to be different. This time was going to be better. This time, I was going to be enough.”
—
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“People didn't stick because I was made of fucking Teflon. I'd always told myself that it was better that way, that being alone was easier. That I wasn't a coward for easing my way out of friendships before they could really start.”
—
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