Magic to the Bone

I'm not usually wowed by the first book in any series and I rarely give five stars. Devin Monk's Allie Beckstrom is a gem. ( )

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Really great series!!! Reminds me of the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews. I love it! Even better its a finished series so you can read all nine in the series and be done! I hate waiting! Author has a different twist on magic I havent seen before and Allie Beckstrom does get her ass kicked a lot. Its great to see a character still willing to defy the odds. ( )

This is a spoiler free review of the first FIVE books in the Allie Beckstrom series.

So there are two things to know about Allie Beckstrom: the first is that she's a Hound, someone who makes a living tracing magical residues back to their source. The second thing to know is that she's the only child of Daniel Beckstrom, a fabulously wealthy innovator and tycoon. You might think that her profession, Hounding, is the more important fact - but there are books in the series where she only Hounds once or twice. Her daddy issues, on the other hand...they refuse to go away.

The series takes place in a world where magic has been discovered and commercialized in recent history. In fact, it's Allie's father - yep, daddy's already back in the conversation - who developed the technology to store and harness magic. Magic use has become very common, integrated into most aspects of everyday life, but it carries a "price in pain." Physical pain. The caster can direct the pain to arrive at a certain time, in a certain way, but there's no avoiding it.

This "price in pain" defines the Hounds - because they use magic all the time, they're always hurting. They turn to coping mechanisms like drugs or alcohol. They burn out fast. Allie's avoided that fate so far, but it's pretty clear that she's gravitated to Hounding not just because she has a talent but because she wants to get as far away from her father, and her father's plans for her life, as possible. So, you know, daddy issues again.

In MAGIC TO THE BONE, Allie's dad is murdered and Allie is the prime suspect. Everyone who examines daddy's body says she cast the spell that killed him. She didn't. We also find out, because we get occasional scenes from his point of view, that a mentally broken young man named Cody forged Allie's magical signature on the killing spell. When I read MAGIC TO THE BONE I was kind of annoyed by Cody. He seemed like a throwaway character and I didn't want to read from his point of view. To my surprise, Cody turns out to be really important to the series as a whole. He reappears in each book, and we get a little more backstory about him every time he shows up.

This Cody issue showcases one of the best and worst qualities of the series. The plot conflicts that Devon Monk starts brewing in MAGIC TO THE BONE carry through to every book I've read. She builds and builds and builds from the same elements. The overarching plot is the only plot, and the whole series feels a lot like one really long novel to me. On the downside, that means that a lot of problems that carry from one book to another also seem to DRAG from one book to another, long after they should have been solved.

Two highlights of the series...I find Allie's narration super funny, and her love interest, Zayvion Jones, super sexy. Allie is full of quips ("I was so thirsty I could drain a river dry and still have room for a few creeks and springs"). Her humor is often wry and understated and just works for me. As for Zayvion? He's unique in the urban fantasy pantheon. Allie always talks about his "Zen" demeanor and he is indeed a very calm, cool guy. He's also got a sense of humor and he and Allie have great banter, which is wonderful. But Zayvion manages to be relaxed and still very much an alpha, still fierce and downright scary when he wants to be. It's a nice change, and it means that he's equally sexy on the battlefield, in the bedroom, and just hanging out around the kitchen table.

On the whole I recommend the Allie Beckstrom books, although the series doesn't break into my circle of favorites.
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a handful of interesting ideas...mainly all cribbed from previous entries into the urban fantasy genre. not much new or original here, though it can be fun to ponder "now, where have i read this thought before?" ( )