Natural Mage

“Oh gobbledygook twatwallop. Butt crack solstice alert. Flubber fart bugger balls.”

“Here. You can use my phone. (That's her number).” Red handed it over. The number on the screen was labeled “She-Devil.”

(Magical Mayhem 2) Natural Mage by K. F. Breene

You may want to know my thoughts on Review spoilers, and ratings before you go beyond "Generally". Click the [Back] button there to return here. Review ≈ 1100 words

My Rating:

I highly recommend this 3-star paranormal fantasy novel taking place in the Demon Days, Vampire Nights World . Book 2 of the Magical Mayhem Trilogy., "Natural Mage", primarily features the continuing adventures of Penelope Bristol as our "becoming more powerful" natural mage and Emery Westbrook, a natural mage.

Highly recommend? Yes! Just because I'm not gushing over it (3-stars) doesn't mean it was lacking.

If you've skipped the "Fire and Ice Trilogy" and "(Magical Mayhem 1) Natural Witch" the rest of this review may sound like ancient Sumerian to you. Of course, you can read this book. I imagine the lack of foundational knowledge would act as a black hole in your mind, making the story baffling. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Generally: (Possible spoilers).
In "The Natural Witch" (previous novel) the "Seattle" mage's guild, an organization quite corrupt, was primarily after Emery or alerted to Emery's anger at the guild, so they were determined to capture him and use him for their own purposes, or destroy him. In the process of this vendetta, Penny Bristol is "discovered" and then she becomes a target as well.

Now, in Natural Mage, Penny is in New Orleans, home town to the previous Demon Days & Vampire Nights trilogy co-protagonists, Reagan & Darius. Penny is training under the powerful and familiar dual mages, Callie and Dizzie, that she met early in the previous novel.

Emery has left Penny, in his mind, to protect her. All the while they are separated, both are pining over each other.

Penny's "Mage" training under the tutelage of Callie and Dizzie is slow. Penny's abilities don't work well under the conventional training she's getting. Penny knows this because she's been with Emery and knows how her "magic" should work.

Seeing the lack of progress, our beloved Darius decides to "take over" her training. His idea is essentially to throw her into the deep and and see if she swims. What actually happens is what usually happens with Penny, things don't go as expected. In this case, Darius's mansion is mostly destroyed. Darius and nearly all his guests and employees are either destroyed, crippled, or otherwise severely injured.

After this disaster our infamous Reagan intercedes to resume Penny's training.

My Notable Notes:
Sorry. They're all horrible spoilers. So only a little.

Darius's sink or swim experiment not only left him nearly dead, he had very important and very powerful house guests who were essentially in "hibernation". Penny's "survival instinct" woke up the guest. This is where everything that can go wrong, does go wrong.

Likes and Dislikes:
The antagonist, the mage's guild, seemed nebulous.

We do know the antagonist "guild" is powerful, that it is amassing more power, is picking up more powerful allies, and their plans are extensive. They are not going to mistakenly assume a city's worth of powerful mages will be able to capture either Penny or Emery. Despite knowing all this about the antagonists, the sense of danger from these antagonists seems abstract, like worrying about an earthquake or a tornado. Of course, they will come, when, where, and how horrible it may be feels indefinite.

Another quote I liked: “Women are never in relative safety, you moron. We train to watch out for danger from girlhood. Spoiler alert: the danger is menfolk. Dark streets and parking lots to us are like the wilds for you. Trust me, she knows when hidden eyes are on her."

Like or dislike? Emery, the natural mage, hiding out in "other-where" has prophetic type gifts that have kept him out of trouble all his life. Since falling for Penny, then leaving her, he now gets premonitions when she is in trouble, which is often. He's constantly worried about her. He spends times collecting stones for her. (yeah, I warned you about the black hole) So Emery resigns himself to his heart, and comes out of hiding, damn the consequences.

The Technical: About the writing critique?
The romance interest essentially resigns himself to his heart, damn the consequences. If you're not riding the black hole while reading this book, this sounds very familiar.

Five books into this 9 book "world", and we have precisely the same sub-plot in two of the three trilogies, so far. Written slightly different, granted. The title of the next book is enough information about that sub-plot that if that's all we cared about, we could skip the book.

Authors do pull off unique twists from time to time, so, I'll be finishing the trio of trilogies, providing the final book is published before the my expiration date. (More about my age than Katie's prolific publishing.)

Making the antagonist more unique, specific, or frightening could help with reader's engrossment. While antagonists remain similar across this series, sometimes there are clear threats like an Aswang, or the demon Agnon. These clear dangerous antagonists heighten reader's emotional investment in the story. A group of misfit mages with ill intentions lacks the urgency of danger to the protagonists.

Conclusion:
My first K. F. Breene books were the Finding Paradise Duology. This eventually lead me to two readings of the The Warrior Chronicles series. Eight plus books and no losers puts an author on my radar.

Everything you'd expect from a K. F. Breene story is in this novel. Penny still seems ridiculously "pre-teen" but I've mentioned before that Penny is written this way so consistently that it works. Additionally Penny continues to grow to meet ever more challenging threats on her journey. She even manages an actual curse word!

All of Ms. Breene's novels have a excellent dose of sensual tension. Not precisely sexual tension in this series. The love interests are more concerned about their hearts than their groins. Still, the release of the tension is sexual. As is largely true in real life. (Closer to PG13 than R or X.)

There are no gaping holes in world building or rules of magic. In fact, how different people have or use magic is almost as relevant as a major character by itself in this "world".

Finally, be realistic. If you've read the previous 4 books, don't pretend you want to miss this one, or any of the Demon Days, Vampire Night series.

Read on: Mar 8, 11, 16, 19, 2021
More about me here and here.
View all my Goodreads reviews
or visit my Home/2021 HTLM Reviews Page

Links:
Author: K. F. Breene Website
Narrator: Nicole Poole, Narrator Website
Purchase Links: Natural Mage Retailer Links
Basic Info: Epub via PocketBook Android App: 47 Chapters, 336 Pages - Audiobook on $ Smart Audiobook Player Pro: 11:21:00