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COVER REVEAL: Lord Garrington’s Vessel by S. Rodman (Giveaway)
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REVIEW: A Touch Of Fever by Nazri Noor
Arcane Hearts: A Touch Of Fever – Nazri Noor
What do you do when you can’t cast spells? You make your own magic.
Jackson Pryde was never great at wielding magic. Instead, he works as an artificer, crafting enchanted devices in the Black Market, a shadowy bazaar of wonders. But Xander Wright, the mouthy, pretentious mage next door, hates all the hammering in Jackson’s workshop.
When a chance assignment forces them to team up, they discover a terrifying predicament. Something is driving members of the magical community into murderous rages. Jackson and Xander must combine might and magic to find the source of the Fever and stop it. Can they put aside their differences long enough to end the Fever, or will they succumb to its bloodthirsty curse?
A Touch of Fever is a 73,000-word M/M urban fantasy romance with a HFN ending. Join a fast-talking artificer and a snarky sorcerer, best friends turned bitter enemies, as they navigate an adventure filled with strange flora, mythical fauna, and magical murders. If you like your urban fantasy with humor, horror, and a whole lot of heart, you’ve come to the right place. Experience A Touch of Fever today.
A Touch Of Fever is an urban fantasy adventure that reads like a shounen anime with a shounen-ai romance. It is the first book of the Arcane Hearts series and my first book by Nazri Noor. I’m guessing, this is connected to the author’s other urban fantasy works.
Our hero is Jackson Pryde, last of the Pryde family of artificers. He lives in the Black Market, a magical mercantile city in a pocket dimension of sorts that has portals to different places around the world. It’s one bustling bazaar after another, a mish-mash of cultures and creatures where every conceivable item can be bought for a price. It is dominated by various guilds.
After an incident that blew up their labs and killed almost all artificers, the guild and the craft were deemed pretty much defunct. As a result, Jackson’s life is an everyday hustle to put food on the table. These frequently involved selling and bartering prized items he foraged or embarking on quests to retrieve one.
One day he was requested to retrieve a rare flower, with the condition that he work with a partner. This turned out to be Xander Wright, frenemy, neighbor, and the magical boy of his dreams. The two lived to annoy the heck out of each other. Dorks!
Like many shounen anime heroes, Jackson is cocky and brash. He has no false modesty about his looks and loves to flex his muscles just to get a rise out of Xander. He’s also insecure about not having much magic in him.
Artificers use artifacts to amplify the little magic they have inside them. Jackson has been working for years to create a gauntlet that actually works. He carries the thing around in his backpack, testing it whenever the opportunity arises. It’s his ticket to bringing in gold and bringing back glory to artificers.
Xander is from an elite family of mages and went to an ultra-elite school for magic. He and Jackson were childhood friends who grew apart and became antagonistic. His hobby was to file noise complaints against his artificer neighbor.
Xander’s life is the opposite of Jackson’s. He hasn’t seen much of the world, just going about studying magic and not much else. The quest with Jackson might be the first time he stepped out of the Black Market. Naive he might be, Xander is also a highly-trained, walking, talking arsenal of deadly weapons.
The story is written in Jackson’s 1st person POV. Our boy is quite the talker, building a detailed picture of the Black Market and the Arcane Hearts world through smart-ass comments and various asides. If you love world-building that goes down to the nitty-gritty, you’ll liked this.
It’s a wordy book to read on paper. I do feel I wouldn’t have finished it if not for Zachary Johnson’s energetic narration. He was the perfect audiobook narrator for the series. His voices and characterizations were fabulously on point!
I only noted the wordiness because I am a lazy reader who has no patience with details. The writing was able to keep the mood lively and the momentum consistently moving even through the denser prose. It struck a good balance between action, humor, magic, and romance.
The main thing that kept me hooked was how the author deftly weaved together a grand adventure filled with action and magic while building up the delicious anticipation between two frenemies with very obvious USTs.
This was wonderfully demonstrated during Jackson and Xander’s quest, where they snapped and sniped, battled a very angry sylph, and were forced to acknowledge a truce or else. They would have ended up acknowledging so much more if not for a griffin with very bad timing.
The quest is actually just part of a wider plot. The titular fever is the big mystery that runs in the background. It is mostly heard via secondhand news as the cause of various death. It wasn’t until another neighbor spontaneously combusted that Jackson and Xander took an active part in the investigation.
The cast is fantastic! Jackson’s friends, the talented Beatrice, the gentle giant Paxton, and the majestic griffin Zephyr, all had colorful personalities that made their interactions hilarious.
I loved the fight scenes! They’re always an adrenaline-pumping mix of death-defying stunts and spectacular displays of high-level magic. I especially liked that we get high-octane action and magic from the get-go. No boring training tropes here!
All in all, A Touch of Fever is a super fun action-adventure with winsome heroes to root for. It was great to listen to on audio, and it would be even more amazing to see on screen.
Rating:
4 Stars – minor quibbles but I loved it to bitsSoundtrack: Fever Dreams
Artist: Diveo feat. Taylor Fernandez
Album:
If you like my content, please consider using my Amazon affiliate links below to buy your copy of A Touch Of Fever. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying Amazon purchases at no additional cost to you.
You can also use my Bookshop affiliate links to buy paperbacks and MP3 CD audiobooks and help support independent bookstores.
A Touch Of Fever
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One Line Reviews Of Some Books I Read This Year
This is a round up of the rest of the books I read this year that I’m too lazy to do a full review.
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RELEASE BLITZ: Restitution by Rebecca Cohen (Giveaway)
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RELEAE BLITZ: Avarice by Rebecca Cohen (Giveaway)
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REVIEW: Origin by A.J. Sherwood & Jocelynn Drake
Scales ‘N’ Spells: Origin – A.J. Sherwood & Jocelynn Drake
Cameron wants to make it clear that he did not go into the festival to find a dragon mate.
Germany is supposed to be an escape. With a new mechanical engineering degree, a new job looming, and a whole life planned out that isn’t his, Germany seems like the best place to find himself.
So how does he end up discovering his lost magic heritage, running from bad guys with a secret agenda, and being adopted by the not-so-extinct Fire Dragon clan?
Cameron blames tall, dark, and sexy Alric, king of the Fire dragons. His fated mate. Because of course he is, and mates are meant to take the blame, right?
It may take a hot second, but as Cameron learns more about the scarred Alric and the life he’s landed in, Cameron realizes that perhaps this is where he’s meant to be, magic and mates and kidnapping and all.
Turns out coming to Germany wasn’t an escape but his awakening.
Tags:
Not-so-extinct, Shifter dragons, mages, fated mates, secret clans, epic libraries, hurt/comfort, age gap, not that Alric cares, magical heritage, mechanical engineers being BAMF, grumpy dragon kings being protective of their cute mates, really the cuteness is downright criminal, we might need a firehose for these two, or not, sass, so much sass, Ravi and Cameron are no longer allowed to be alone together, for reasons, dragons hoarding, when you live long enough statistics will get you, bats named Cheryl, beheadings, no damsels in distress here, just very unhappy mages, with trigger fingers, anyone have life hacks on how to get rid of kidnappers, Cameron is open to suggestions
Here be DRAGONS!!!
If you love them, this series is sure to make your inner fire-breather rumble.
Those tags up there in the blurb made my day! I think every book should have them.
A.J. Sherwood teamed up with fave author Jocelynn Drake to deliver us this fantastical series, Scales ‘n’ Spells. This is a world of dragons and mages. They work together to create magic. Mages are also extra precious because they are the dragons’ fated mates. However, there was a Great War that wiped out the mages and dragons became extinct. Or so the world thought…
The remaining dragons, like the Fire dragon clan, kept their existence a secret. King Alric and his clan have been searching for a mage for 500 years. They finally found one at the Dragon Festival, an American-Korean tourist named Cameron Park. Alric decided to play tour guide to see what the young man knows. Turns out, Cam had no clue he is a mage or that dragons still exist.
Origin is the first book in the series. It effectively established the Scales ‘n’ Spells world and boy, there was quite a lot to take in. Cam had to learn thousands of years of dragon history, about his own family’s legacy as well as magic spells. There was info-dumping but there was an effort to avoid bogging down the narrative too much. The magic system was explained using simple scientific analogies by Cam as he tried to figure how it worked. I liked this approach because it makes things more straightforward and easier to grasp.
Cam was understandably freaked out upon learning he’s a mage. Still I couldn’t help wishing that maybe MCs can react more like Po from Kung Fu Panda, all gung-ho and fanboy-y about being the chosen one instead of getting hysterical.
That mini-gripe aside, Cam’s fabulous! Flirty, cheerful, intelligent and so very determined to boost people’s self-esteem through compliments. Especially that of a certain broody, pessimistic king. They say a mate is someone who brings joy. And while Cam’s a bit too much at times, the way he lit up Alric’s world was a palpable energy that shone throughout the story.
Many will claim Cam is cute, but really, the most adorkable character of all was Alric. Check out his dragon hoard! The man is regal and dominant, very elegant in his suits, very protective of his Clan. But he can be so endearingly awkward and insecure too. Many times, I wanted to give him a hug.
As the last remaining Burkhart, Alric carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. More so now that they have just found a long-lost mage, someone tried to kidnap their treasured magic user. Alric was always too ready to sacrifice his own happiness for his Clan. The dork even thought he’s unworthy to be anyone’s mate, let alone Cam, because he has a damaged arm. Put this poor king out of his misery, Cam!
I loved the authors’ take on fated mates. It’s started with insta-attraction but then took things slow. Instead of simply being swept away by fate, the two MCs got to know each other properly. The relationship development was a rollercoaster but it’s definitely worth it.
The book as a whole felt a tad too long. There’s the training rigmarole to go through, historical events to recount, the big to-do about Cam’s family, and the mystery of who is behind the kidnappings. It could do without some of these parts. It was like things were happening quickly for Cam in a matter of weeks but it also took a while for the story to get to the point.
The supporting characters though, I loved them! Alric’s friends/courtiers are awesome! Each of them stood out and made me want to know more about them. Baldewin, Ravi, and Gunther each have their own books. I can’t wait for these dragons to find their mates.
I might have some niggles, but overall, I had a lot of fun with Origin. It’s fast-paced and slow-burn, humorous and angsty. This series opener set the wonderful world of dragons and mages. It introduced us to a lovable Fire Dragon king, his beloved little mage, and a wacky family cheering them on. It’s a story 500 years in the making but it’s only just the beginning.
Rating:
4 Stars – minor quibbles but I loved it to bitsSoundtrack: I Found You
Artist: Andy Grammer
Album: Naïve
If you like my content, please consider using my Amazon affiliate links below to buy your copy of Origin. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying Amazon purchases at no additional cost to you.
You can also use my Bookshop affiliate links to buy paperbacks and MP3 CD audiobooks and help support independent bookstores.
ORIGIN
If you like my content, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi. Your donations will help keep this website going. Thank you so much!
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NEW RELEASE BLITZ: Trials by Sean Ian O’Meidhir & Connal Braginsky (Excerpt & Giveaway)
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BLOG TOUR: A Touch Of Fever by Nazri Noor (Excerpt & Giveaway)
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NEW RELEASE BLITZ: Escape by Sean Ian O’Meidhir & Connal Braginsky (Excerpt & Giveaway)
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COVER REVEAL: Blooded by Nat Kennedy (Excerpt & Giveaway)
