Book Review- Magic to the Bone by Devon Monk

Forget the fairy-tale, hocus-pocus, wave a wand and bling-o, sparkles and pixie dust crap. Magic, like booze, sex, and drugs, gives as good as it gets. In modern day Portland Oregon, magic is the newest natural resource everyone can use. The only catch? The price for using magic is pain. Allie is the strong-willed daughter of a wealthy business man who made his fortune patenting technology to make magic available to the masses. But Allie doesn’t want anything to do with the family’s dirty fortune. She instead goes into business as a Hound–tracking illegal spells back to their caster, even though using magic sometimes costs her a second price–the loss of her memories.

When Allie discovers there is a organization of secret magic users in the city who are on the brink of war, and that those people are her powerful father’s enemies, she must fight not only for her life and lives of those she loves, but also for magic itself. Unfortunately for her enemies, Allie isn’t the kind of woman to back down–no matter the price to pay.

Devon Monk writes a lovely, fast paced novel that I very much enjoyed. Her main character, Allie Beckstrom is very quirky and strong yet vulnerable at the same time. I appreciated that none of the usual characters within Urban Fantasy showed up (no vampires or werewolves), it seemed a world very much plausible which made it all the more fun to read. A little more depth would have been great, but overall I would give this a 4 out of 5.

And many thanks to Annassa from whom I received this book in the form of a contest prize.