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BLOG TOUR: Sagittarius Saves Libra by Anyta Sunday (Excerpt & Giveaway)
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RELEASE TOUR: Make Music Together by Ariella Zoelle (Excerpt & Giveaway)
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COVER REVEAL: Sagittarius Saves Libra by Anyta Sunday (Giveaway)
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BLOG TOUR: Salad On The Side by Karenna Colcroft (Excerpt & Giveaway)
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COVER REVEAL: The Last Beginning by Abrianna Denae (Excerpt)
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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:
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A Touch Of Fever
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COVER REVEAL: Bo Next Door by Duckie Mack (Giveaway)
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RELEASE BLITZ: Sexted By Santa by D.J. Jamison (Excerpt & Giveaway)
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RELEASE BLITZ: Finishing Last by Rob Browatzke (Excerpt)
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REVIEW: Discovering Destiny by Abigail Kade
Familiar Magick: Discovering Destiny – Abigail Kade
Who would believe that pretending to be your next door neighbor’s boyfriend for a simple family dinner would change so many lives forever? As two witches from two very different families learn how their destinies are intertwined, they realize they may be the only hope for their kind to survive what’s coming for them all.
Atherton Blackwood
Once upon a time, I was the heir to my family’s seat on the High Council of Witches. After one horrific night, the Council was no more and all the families went into hiding. The likelihood I would ever find my mo shíorghrá, my soul mate, was gone. But by fate or luck, I’ve finally found my other half. Tobias Wyvern was destined to be mine, but we’re discovering that’s not all destiny has in store for us. I need to find out if our future will be our own, or if it will be determined by a prophecy that was written before either of us were born. I’ll do whatever I have to do, go wherever I have to go to find a way for us to be together. Even if it means going home.
Tobias Wyvern
I invited my next door neighbor, Arthur, to a family dinner to get them off my back, but what I’m finding out is that my whole life has been a lie. I was always told we were the only witches left in the world, but that’s because my family was too frightened to tell me the truth. They signed a contract when I was a child, but had no intention of following through. The Wyverns and the Blackwoods would never be united if they could prevent it. Things happened and they were able to disappear, but now Atherton Blackwood is here to claim me, and I’m ready to be claimed. However, claiming me now has consequences far beyond a vow to each other. By coming together, we’ll set into motion a destiny neither one of us could ever have predicted.
My first thought upon reading the blurb was that Discovering Destiny was Romeo and Juliet, witch version.
It wasn’t.
Familiar Magick is built upon the tragic history of witches. There are families of witches that specialized in various elemental magic. One day, malevolent entities killed the witches en masse. There were a few families who managed to stay alive. The survivors scattered and went deep into hiding, practicing their magic in secret.
This is a short book of only 126 pages. It did not dwell too much on the details but it was able to establish a fairly well-conceived world, enough to give the series solid bones to work with. There was nothing groundbreaking or new here but this was the part I enjoyed the most.
Destiny is the main theme and witches are fated to soul mates who compliment their magic. They’re also bound to very vocal animal familiars. They’re there as plot device and comic relief, serving as voices of reason and sources of annoyance, mostly nagging their witches towards various courses of action.
Atherton is from the Blackwood Family. They specialized in wind magic, allowing them to affect the weather. His familiar is a raven, Lucy, a foul mouthed, foul tempered creature. She’s not that bad because she has Ath’s best interest at heart.
Tobias is from the Wyvern family. They specialized in earth magic. In Tobi’s case, this allows him power over plants. His familiar is a cat, Chester. He’s well-spoken and has perfect manners. Excerpt when you try to scratch his belly.
I have more descriptions for the familiars because the personalities of the two MCs weren’t as distinct, fully realized or that interesting. They were content to be swept along by their destiny, neither one questioned the state of things.
Anyway, these two were destined to be together but were pulled apart by the evil forces who massacred the families. But as fate would have it, they ended up as neighbors 20 years after.
Ath knew Tobi was a witch. Tobi was utterly clueless. He grew up with the knowledge that the Wyverns were the only witches left in this world. The two men were egged on by their familiars to ask each other out. Both were digging their heels. Tobi, because he’s shy and socially awkward. Ath, I don’t know.
This part was both cute and frustrating. Cute with how the two were dancing around each other and throwing off sparks. Frustrating because, for the most part, they did nothing. Also, Chester was already talking to Ath secretly and explicitly telling him to make his move. So why didn’t the cat just tell Tobi about the existence of other witches? From what I gathered, there were no specific caveats about this thing. Also, cluelessness could be adorable but I couldn’t believe Tobi was actually that dense not to figure things out after some very obvious clues.
The second part of the story was meeting the Wyvern family. Here, we meet horrid characters in the form of Tobi’s mother and brother. A mystery presented itself and unveiled a quest that will tie together all the books The two MCs were more active participants now, taking action to solve the riddle left by Tobi’s late father.
I feel that the ending could have been executed better. It was going for a cliffhanger but it took the focus entirely off Ath and Tobi. It was like they were forgotten upon the introduction of the new characters who were going to be leads for the second book. I think it’s important for romance novels to end with something conclusive about the main couple even for HFNs and cliffhangers, especially if the series features a different couple each book.
Discovering Destiny might have one-dimensional characters and wonky plot but it laid a good foundation for the series and had it’s share of entertaining moments. My interest was piqued by the next book, starring a nerdy fire witch and his leather daddy demon. Plus, there’s a fast-talking squirrel familiar. I say read this series opener to get the lay of the land so we could have the best experience out of the more promising sequels.
Rating:
3 Stars – not exactly setting my world on fire but I liked itSoundtrack: You Were Made For Me
Rating: Freddie & The Dreamers
Album:
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Kindle Audiobook
