City of Dark Magic (edition 2012)

City of Dark Magic is first novel by Magnus Flute, a pseudonym for the collaboration of two writers: Meg Howrey and Christina Lynch. I didn't read anything written by them before, but their styles merged perfectly - the transitions are invisible. I don't know how Meg Howrey and Christina Lynch organized or divided writing of chapters but it feels like one person wrote this book.

City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flute is set in the city of Prague. A city where every stone has a story and "most of them involved blood or people going crazy". Descriptions of city and buildings in this book are so vivid and the locations are imaginary either - every place and building described in this book is real.

Pictures are from Prague Stay website. Go there to explore this wonderful city. You will probably get desire to visit Prague, just like me. :)

The story centers on Sarah, a musicologist from Boston, who gets a summer job in Prague to help in organization of music collection for the Lobkowicz family museum’s grand opening. She would probably define it as a perfect dreams job, except for one sad fact: she is there to replace her college professor & mentor who committed suicide. Sarah is my favorite type of heroine: confident, smart, sassy… Maybe a little bit too promiscuous, but hey everyone has to have some flaw. :)
Except Sarah, we meet a lot of other weird a quirky characters: her friends and scientists working on other museum collections. They all add to colorfulness and general humor of the story. And of course they make the chaos around museum opening organization, even more… chaotic. Because, as the grand opening gets near, the tension builds and a lot of secrets are discovered: why Sarah’s mentor committed suicide, who was an Immortal Beloved (Beethoven’s inspiration), consequences of conspiracies by WWII spies, love affairs …

Someone would maybe complain that there is too much going on and some things could have been completely left out, but I liked it. It was refreshing and original - you never knew what to expect. Magnus Flyte managed to merge it all together, making this novel a weird and unusual mix of genres: contemporary, humor, mystery, spy-thriller, romance, paranormal …

I recommend this book to fans of: chaotic mysteries, novels with a lot of weird characters or humorous reads. But be warned: City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte has a very unique and specific sense of humor, so I think that readers will either love it or hate it. Check out the excerpt and if you like it - it only gets better from there.

Disclaimer: I was given a free eBook by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a honest review. This text is also posted on Amazon and my blog. ( )

MORE SEX IN THE CITY THAN CITY OF DARK MAGIC

When I saw this at the library, I snatched it up because I'm interested in Prague, mysterious quests and time travel. Sarah Weston, a musicologist working on her Ph.D., receives a strange visitor; a dwarf named Nicolas Pertusano delivers an invitation for Sarah to use the summer to take on the task of organizing the music collection at the Lobkowitz Museum in Prague.

No sooner does Sarah accept the job than strange events begin to occur, like a break-in at her apartment and word that her academic mentor took drugs and committed suicide. But Sarah finds that the museum houses unimaginable treasures, including handwritten manuscripts by Sarah's idol, Beethoven. It's also home to the handsome and mysterious Max, heir to the Lobkowitz properties.

Somebody seems to want Sarah to get out of the Museum and Prague, and she begins to fear for her life, as other members of the museum staff are killed. Then Sarah finds that the drug her mentor took was something that allows the mind to see and hear events that occurred through the centuries, and her research into Beethoven's life takes on a whole new dimension.

Although the book description promises paranormal suspense, romance and tons of Prague atmosphere, it read more like a soft-core porn version of Sex in the City, with Sarah Weston playing the Carrie Bradshaw part and Prague standing in for NYC. For me, there was way too much information about Sarah's sexual escapades and far too little about the city or the dark magic.

It was hard to suspend my disbelief when the authors make so many factual errors and sneer at people and places they don't deem cool enough. Sarah refers to a disgrace possibly resulting in her having to get a job at a small women's college in Idaho where they've barely heard of Prague and think Beethoven is just the cartoon Schroeder's idol.

They write that Sarah receives an inch-thick stack of Czech 100-crown notes before her trip to Prague because that's what it takes to pay for a taxi ride from the airport to the city center. In fact, it would take only about seven of those notes. They're also unclear on basics, writing numerous times that flights from Boston and other east coast cities take 11 hours to get to Prague's Ruzyne Airport. Well, there are no nonstops to Ruzyne from Boston, so it could take 11 hours for the whole trip, but the references imply strongly that the flights are nonstops, in which case it would take only about eight hours. And these are just errors from the first chapters of the book.

All the errors, attitude and raunch made this book a flight of fancy that never leaves the ground. ( )

I received this book as a Goodreads ARC giveaway. This was a great book and I really enjoy it ( )

good lord, it just gets worse and worse by the minute. i can't go on. i managed 6 chapters, but the poorly written sex scene that just barged into the middle of dinner did me in. i think they're going for "kooky in-your-face" but ended up with "embarrassingly bad" instead. ( )

Read my full review HERE ( )