Magic to the Bone (Allie Beckstrom, #1) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Jul 24, 2011 KarenF rated it really liked it

Shelves: urban-fantasy, own

This one sat on Mt. TBR for quite a while and I'm glad a challenge gave me a push to read it. There is a little bit of first book syndrome, some thing explained over and over and others left a little vague, but I still enjoyed this one quite a bit.

It's an interesting world and take on magic from Devon Monk. Magic in this world is more physical than I've seen in other books. There's a great deal of taste, smell and touch involved. Also, the magic user pays a physical price for using it. Sometimes ...more

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May 08, 2017 Moondance rated it liked it

Shelves: magic, betrayal, first-in-series, oregon, sos-bingo-2017, portland, paranormal-oregon, hound, devon-monk, allie-beckstrom

It was the morning of my twenty-fifth birthday, and all I wanted was a decent cup of coffee, a hot breakfast, and a couple of hours away from the stink of used magic that seeped through the walls of my apartment building every time it rained.

Allie Beckstrom lives in a world where magic was "discovered" thirty years ago. This opened the possibility for everyone to use magic. Unfortunately, there is a price to pay. Using magic can make you very ill or cause memory loss. Allie is a Hound and can tr It was the morning of my twenty-fifth birthday, and all I wanted was a decent cup of coffee, a hot breakfast, and a couple of hours away from the stink of used magic that seeped through the walls of my apartment building every time it rained.

Allie Beckstrom lives in a world where magic was "discovered" thirty years ago. This opened the possibility for everyone to use magic. Unfortunately, there is a price to pay. Using magic can make you very ill or cause memory loss. Allie is a Hound and can track when people offload magic onto innocent people. She is also the estranged daughter of one of the most powerful men in the magic business. Her father, Daniel, owns a company that is constantly working on devices to make magic more usable and portable. Mama Rossitto lives in North Portland which is a vey sketchy area of town. She takes in boys that have been abandoned. One of Mama's Boys is dying because of a huge offload of magic. Allie detects her father's signature in the mix. Allie approaches her father after a seven year estrangement. Daniel Beckstrom has money and power. He has paid Zayvion Jones to follow Allie and attempt to bring her back to the fold. Allie becomes the prime suspect in her father's death when another Hound scents Allie on he dad.

This book has been recommended to me by various people since it was released. I wanted to fall in love with it. I wanted it to be my new favorite series. Not so much. I appreciated the world building. I liked the characters. I just felt that there was a little something missing. I really liked Allie's best friend, Nola and Cody. Cody is a complex character that I hope to see more of.

Zayvion was an odd study. I felt that I never truly got to see the real Zay. I understand Allie's attraction to him. I just felt that there were way too many trust issues.

I like that Allie has some secrets about magic that make her more well rounded. It made me sad that she had memory loss from pulling magic.

I love the little kitten that is used to control Cody. I hated the Snake Man as much as Cody did and had decided to quit reading if he killed the kitten.

All in all this is a good first book in the series. I will read the next one just to see if it ties up loose ends from this one. It didn't wow me nor did I want to put it down and never return to it. It will be interesting to see where the story goes from here . ...more

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