MAGIC TO THE BONE, Devon Monk – Review
MAGIC TO THE BONE is the first book of the Allie Beckstrom series by Devon Monk. It is also Monk's debut novel, and has the rare distinction of having a cover that stays relatively true to the novel while still being visually alluring. The cover artist was Larry Rostant, and he did a great job. I bought the paperback some time ago, before the second book came out, but in honor of book three coming out November 3rd, I thought it would be a good idea to take the opportunity to re-read the series.
Allie Beckstrom is a Hound, able to trace a spell back to its caster, and while she may be one of the best there is at what she does, that doesn't make her home any less crummy or her bank account any less meager. This despite the fact that her father is a rich, powerful businessman, because she left that world long ago. But when she comes across a little boy dying from an illegal magic Offload, which is a way of avoiding the price of magic, she's drawn back into that world--because the Offload bears her father's magical signature. And then her father turns up dead, and she's the lead suspect, which complicates things quite a bit.
My favorite element of this series is the price of magic that Monk has chosen to have her characters pay. The first line of the back-cover blurb was Everything has a cost. And every act of magic extracts a price from its user... and that drew me in immediately. I come from the school of thought that insists that magic shouldn't be a get-out-of-jail-free card for a character; it doesn't exist to make things easy or just for the shiny coolness factor.
I remember when I first came across Holly Lisle's eleven Rules for Better Fantasy. I won't say they changed my life, but they certainly changed the way I read fiction. If a particular kind of magic is a way out of trouble for a character, or doesn't come with consequences, chances are I'm never even going to get past the book's back cover.