by C.M. Waggoner
Published on November 5, 2019 by Ace
ISBN: 9781984805843
Format: Paperback
Pages: 400
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Onna can write the parameters of a spell faster than any of the young men in her village school. But despite her incredible abilities, she’s denied a place at the nation’s premier arcane academy. Undaunted, she sails to the bustling city-state of Hexos, hoping to find a place at a university where they don’t think there’s anything untoward about providing a woman with a magical education. But as soon as Onna arrives, she’s drawn into the mysterious murder of four trolls.
Tsira is a troll who never quite fit into her clan, despite being the leader’s daughter. She decides to strike out on her own and look for work in a human city, but on her way she stumbles upon the body of a half-dead human soldier in the snow. As she slowly nurses him back to health, an unlikely bond forms between them, one that is tested when an unknown mage makes an attempt on Tsira’s life. Soon, unbeknownst to each other, Onna and Tsira both begin devoting their considerable talents to finding out who is targeting trolls, before their homeland is torn apart…
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I went into Unnatural Magic with such high hopes. The whole concept of humans and trolls living in this merged world with its own dynamics, not to mention the interesting magic system, it just all seemed like it was going to be the perfect book.
But wow was it a slow start and it didn’t change for a good bit of the book.
I think where I struggled was the pacing merged with changing points of view. It’s funny because the different characters were interesting initially and showed so many cool aspects of this highly detailed world. But it also revealed the holes. Waggoner has character interactions down. The dynamics between troll and human culture. The hierarchy of the magic system. I feel like this came through really strong. Yet simultaneously I didn’t feel like I was there. The visual details were missing. So much focus centered on the characters that the rest of the world was… lacking.
As for the characters, I’m struggling to feel much of anything toward them. I was interested in Onna at first with her aspirations to attend a male-dominated school for magic. She was good. Really good. Unfortunately that’s all that really made her interesting. The same thing happened with Tsira and the only portion of her character’s story I was invested in by halfway through was the total inverted relationship goals she and Jeckran had going (think Brienne/Jamie from the Game of Thrones series). But still, the characters came off more like cardboard representatives of their particular Interesting Trait with little depth to back it up.
But ultimately the pacing killed it. I would have enjoyed it more if the story hadn’t struggled along. It took ages for the two storylines to finally converge and even then I was just not into it. I feel like Unnatural Magic was definitely a case of a cool premise with poor execution, a bummer since I think this could have been a book that really stuck with me but instead nothing held my attention long enough to retain. Can’t say I recommend it but I’ll be curious to see what Waggoner writes next.
About Austine
I'm a 20-something research proposal developer with a background in the life sciences and education. Reviewer of books since 2011, amateur photographer by day, and aspiring author by night. I believe animals (and books) are better than people.
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