MAGIC IN THE BLOOD, Devon Monk — Review
MAGIC IN THE BLOOD is the second book of the Allie Beckstrom series by Devon Monk. I bought the paperback some time ago, but in honor of book three coming out November 3rd (next week!), I thought it would be a good idea to take the opportunity to re-read the series. I've already reviewed book one, MAGIC TO THE BONE.
The first thing I noticed when I got this book was how different Allie looks on the cover in comparison to MAGIC TO THE BONE. She's still clearly recognizable--same hair, same tattoos, even the same clothing style, but this Allie looks emaciated and a little fae. Her eyes are almost too big for her face, and she's clutching a bloody knife. I don't say any of this as a critique of the artist, Larry Rostant, but rather in many ways as a compliment. Allie is in a different place in her life in this book--and MAGIC TO THE BONE took a lot out of her, emotionally and physically. It makes sense that she'd look a little tired and lost.
I'm going to skip giving a summary of the book, since you can find one anywhere and it's not a brand new book, and just talk about the stuff I liked and didn't like about it.
In the last review, I mentioned how much I love the consequences that Allie has to go through, such as potentially losing her memory, massive bruising, etc. for using her magic. She has ways of coping--recording things that happen to her, directing backlashes so that she can prepare for the pain to come--but in MAGIC TO THE BONE, we never really saw her write much down in her book, so it's great to see that come back to bite her in MAGIC IN THE BLOOD, where she has no memory of her Happily Ever After, which also changes my perspective on how easy it seemed to attain; now, in book two, we see that there are still difficult things left for Allie to face.