Review of City of Dark Magic

Here's another novel that has two authors - Magnus Flyte is the penname of Meg Howrey and Christina Lynch. This is their first book together and by the way City of Dark Magic ends, you know it is going to be a series.

Grad music student, Sarah Weston, takes a dream job in a Prague castle under mysterious circumstances. While she attempts to discover the real identity of Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved" she is waylaid by a conniving U.S. Senator with a shady past, a handsome prince in exile with whom she shares several sexual escapades and a four hundred year old dwarf. Sound intriguing? Sound far fetched?

I loved the sense of adventure and mystery in the book and having studied music in university, I was interested and could relate to the back story of Beethoven and his contemporaries. The only criticism of the novel I have is that I never really had a clear sense of heroine, Sarah Weston. I knew she must be attractive to have so many sexual suitors and past conquests but I didn't know what she looked like. I also found her character to be inconsistent - one minute she is a naive and bumbling ingenue and the next she is a savvy, sexual aggressor. Personally, I didn't find all the explicit sex vital to the story.

You Will Like This Book If:

- you like reading about exotic European settings
- you liked A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
- you like a spot of paranormal/magic with your adventure/mystery/erotic thrillers

Best Quote: "Sarah scrabbled around the wall till she found the light switch. Nicolas Pertusato was sitting cross legged on Sarah's bed. Even more disturbingly, he was wearing Sarah's 'Beethoven Rocks' T-shirt. Sarah shut her eyes. The little man was not wearing pants."