Magic for Liars

Probably the best book I've read in a while. Such a fascinating world and would love to get to know it better, as well as some of the characters, like Mrs. Webb and her magical surgical skills.

I think what I liked about this book was that it wasn't just about Ivy solving the murder. It was Ivy coming to terms with her sister, her resentment over Tabitha being the only one to be magic, and her anger about their relationship and how they grew apart after her sister left to attend a fancy school for learning magic. Ivy had been left not only without magic, but also with a dying mother and a depressed father, and guilt and anger about her sister seemingly abandoning them all, leaving her on her own to cope with it all on her own.

It was show more also a book about the different personas we wear and the different people we pretend to be, or wish we were, and the lies we tell in order to be liked and accepted by others. Ivy has a lot of emotional baggage, but so does Tabby, something that Ivy wasn't really expecting. It's interesting to see how they both change and evolve as the story goes along. I think it's likely that a lot of sisters who have grown apart and become somewhat estranged could probably relate to a lot of their interactions, including Ivy's self talk in her head about how she is feeling about being with her sister and wanting to reconnect.

Ivy seems very observant and attuned to people's behaviour. She knows how to manipulate people into telling her what she wants to know. She seems very inuitive. I enjoyed her interviews with people and how she handled the questioning, even setting up a visual scene in the library to draw the students in to talk to her, to make them feel at ease, and make them want to help. The one thing that I found a little sketchy was that Ivy investigating the murder, in which her sister is one of the suspects, seemed to be a little bit of a conflict of interest, although that never comes up. The reason she is given for being hired is that she is a non-magical detective, but knows all about the magical world... something that I guess is unique, although again... it's unclear how often a family might find one member becoming magical and needing to go to a special school, since it seemed like the whole magical community was not something regular people knew about. That seemed somewhat confusing and contradictory since Tabby becoming magic didn't seem like it was that abnormal really. It did seem like most of the kids at the school were from magical families, but none of that is really explained. I wish there was more books coming in this world and that it was fleshed out a bit more. I really liked a lot of ideas... the whispering books, the magical healing was interesting, the explanations for some of the magic. I feel like it was a world that could have turned into so much more, that could hold so many interesting story possibilites, so I'm disappointed it's a standalone. But I did enjoy it. show less

'Magic For Liars' delighted me because it did something unexpected with the 'Murder In A School For Magic' concept.

The other books that I've read with broadly similar themes establish a contract between writer and reader that says something like: 'We both know I'm giving you Urban Fantasy here but I'll make it interesting and surprising and internally consistent so relax and have some fun.'

Sarah Gailey starts from a different place. She starts with, 'What if magic was not just real but taken for granted? The province of a gifted elite to be sure but still just another thread in American society. Now imagine that you're one a pair of twin sisters and you have no magic and your sister has so much of it that everything is effortless for show more her and no matter how hard you work, you can never have what she has. What would it be like to grow up like that, with a mirror-image sister who reflects not the you that you've become but the you who you could have been if only you'd been the one born with magic? Finally, imagine that, in your mundane life, you've become a competent Private Investigator, albeit on a diet of cheating spouses and insurance fraudsters, and then you are invited by the head of the prestigious magic school at which your estranged sister teaches, to investigate a suspicious death on campus. Who would you be when your world and your sister's world had to co-exist?

The answer in Ivy Gamble's case is that she would be who she has always been, someone who habitually lies to herself and others.

'Magic For Liars' is a vine that flourishes on the trellis of a good mystery. A teacher's body has been found, bisected, in the restricted section of the school library, amongst the books that whisper to one another and may perhaps call your name. There's a thought-through system of magic and magical education that goes beyond wand-waving and Dog Latin. There are secrets and a suspect pool that extends across staff and students and the resolution is both surprising and satisfying. Yet, the mystery supports rather than powers the book.

'Magic For Liars' is a deeply personal first-person account that focuses not so much on the woman who died or even on finding the person who killed her, but on Ivy Gambles' internal conflicts: the lies she chooses to tell herself and others, the life she wants but can't have, the toxic mixture of love, hate, jealousy and resentment that characterises her relationship with her sister and the pain and instability that comes from her unanchored sense of identity.

I was fascinated by what I read. The book kept getting stronger, resisted clichés and tropes, stuck with being character-based, took me through a mystery that worked and that I couldn't guess the answer to and left me somewhere unexpected that felt real, like more than the solution to a mystery, like a milestone in a life.

I'll be back for more of Sarah Gailey's fiction. I have 'Just Like Home' and 'Upright Women Wanted' on my 'Read in 2023' list.

I recommend the audiobook version of 'Magic For Liars'. Xe Sands' narration is impeccable. She brings Ivy Gamble to life. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.

https://soundcloud.com/macaudio-2/magic-for-liars-by-sarah-gailey-audiobook-exce... show less

Ivy Gamble, unlike her twin sister Tabitha, is not a mage. She has no magic at all. Ivy is a private investigator, and is almost getting by that way. And she enjoys it. She really does. And she is not the least little bit jealous of Tabitha, her twin sister, the mage, who teaches at a prestigious private high school for young mages.

Then she is asked by the head of that school to investigate the death of another teacher there.

Suddenly, Ivy is immersed in the life she could have had, if she had the magic Tabitha has. She's almost having double vision, the life she really leads, and the life she might have had. She and Tabitha seem to be edging towards reconnection after the long estrangement that followed the death of their mother. show more There's a handsome and charming teacher there who is interested on Ivy. Oh, and there's the murder case she's trying to solve.

Ivy has never investigated a murder before. It's been a long time since she was in high school. And these kids are mages, as are all the instructors. Yet the kids are still just kids, teenagers, and their magic pranks are pretty much what you'd expect of teenagers. Only a few stand out as different, and neither they nor any of the instructors at first seem to have any motive to kill the dead woman.

Yet one girl, Alexandria, is clearly influencing the feelings and reactions of those around her in a way that, once Ivy focuses on it enough to describe it to the teacher-mages, she is assured is simply impossible. Yes, there's a theoretical way, but nobody has that much power. Her brother, Dylan, believes he's the "Chosen One" described in their family's prophecy, destined to be the most powerful mage in the world--and he really is quite strong. Another girl, Courtney, has something to hide.

And there's a story going around that the dead woman was involved with someone she shouldn't have been. Not a student, but another teacher.

Ivy is trying to untangle a puzzle without knowing what's normal and abnormal in this setting.

The world-building is good and seamless, here, and the characters are excellent. Every significant character is complex, a mixed bag, and completely convincing. Their strengths and weaknesses are human and believable. I really want to read more by Sarah Gailey.

Highly recommended.

I bought this audiobook. show less

This is a unique take on the "high school for wizards" trope, and rings true far more than any of the others. Ivy is a private investigator, and is not magical, but her twin sister is a magician who teaches at a boarding school for wizards. Ivy has been jealous of her sister's magic her whole life, and the two of them haven't talked in years. A teacher at the school is murdered, and Ivy is brought in to investigate the case.

I did get tired of the somewhat relentless "woe is me, I wish I were magic" self-pity, but I appreciated the outsider's perspective on the school for magicians, and the subversion of some of the classic tropes (especially the "kid who is prophesied to be the greatest ever").

As a mystery, it's decent - it has all the show more classic misdirections and red herrings and an ultimately satisfying ending. show less

Magic For Liars is an interesting tale of a PI investigating a murder at a high school for magically gifted students. The use of magic is unique in this well-written tale, some magical scenes veering very much into body-horror territory. The narrator is the PI, Ivy Gamble, and while she's perhaps not self-loathing, she certainly doesn't like herself very much. The story is as much about Ivy's relationships and personal journey toward loving herself and allowing herself to be loved by others as it is about magic and murder. An intriguing and unique read.

An incredibly fun, clever, hard-to-put-down murder mystery set in a high school for magical teens. PI Ivy Gamble is on the case: Ivy isn't magic, but her twin sister Tabitha is, and Tabitha teaches at Osthorne Academy for Young Mages, where Ivy is supposed to investigate the suspicious death of another teacher, Sylvia Capley. Sylvia, it was determined, was killed by Theoretical Magic gone awry, but the headmaster Ms. Torres believes she was murdered.

(Spoiler alert: yes.)

Ivy and her sister are basically estranged, since the death of their mother from cancer while they were in high school (Tabitha at a magic school, of course, and Ivy at home). Hurt and resentment simmers between them, and although they do hash it out somewhat, everything show more isn't all sunshine and roses. There's also a Prophecy about the Chosen One (of course there is), mean girls, abortion, and a very attractive Physical Magic teacher, Rahul.

See also: The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

Quotes

"But magic isn't real."
"Isn't it?"
"It--of course not. I would have heard of it. Everyone would have heard of it."
"Haven't you heard of it, though?" (32)

But trying not to feel something isn't the same as not feeling it. (32)

"[Theoretical Magic] is a very dangerous field even at the entry levels. It's a lot like sticking your hand into a black box that may or may not have cobras in it." (Torres to Ivy, 72)

The tracks evaporated from under my train of thought. (92)

Truth matters. Truth has always been the thing I'm after, the most important thing. But sometimes, to get to the truth, detours through fiction are necessary. (156)

Here's the truth about most detective work: it's boring, grueling, and monotonous. It involves a lot of being in the right place at the wrong time. But if you spend enough hours being in the right place, eventually, it'll be the right time. (219) show less

Ivy Gamble tells this story. She is a PI who mostly tracks down cheating spouses or those who are defrauding insurance companies. When the Headmaster of the Osthorne Academy for Young Mages comes to hire her to look into the gruesome death of one of the teachers, Ivy is intrigued but definitely feeling out of her depth. Worst of all, her estranged sister Tabitha is a teacher at the school.

Their estrangement started when it was discovered that Tabitha had magic and Ivy had none, and grew even wider when their mother died of a fast-acting cancer while Ivy was home caring for her and Tabitha was happily away at her school. Ivy's mother's death happened when she was a junior in High School and almost caused her to flunk out. It started her show more on a path to her career as a PI instead of attending college and joining the FBI.

Ivy hopes that she will be able to reconcile and build some sort of relationship with her sister since she feels very alone and isolated. Ivy is a loner because, in her opinion, everyone leaves sooner rather than later. She aches for connection but doesn't know how to form connections.

As she looks into the death of the teacher, she learns more about the world of magic and meets a number of the students and staff of the school who might, or might not, know something that will help her discover the murderer. She learns that kids are just kids despite the fact that they have magic. There are mean girls and all the traumas of adolescence. She even begins to form a relationship with one of the teachers in the school. However, since she's lying to him about having magical ability herself, the relationship struggles.

This was an intriguing story with an interesting main character complete with major flaws and insecurities. It is also told in the first person by that main character which leads to wondering about the veracity of her point of view. I found it an absorbing story. show less