Blood Magic, a six book series by JT Lawrence and MJ Krause

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Blood Magic, a 6 book series by JT Lawrence and MJ Krause

Rating: enjoyed and recommend

Genre: the title and cover give it away but this is an action adventure urban fantasy series.

Audience: based on a sample of one (me) I'd say this series is appropriate for ages 15 and up.

This aren't the sort of book I typically read and can't remember the last one I picked up; I think werewolves were involved. Anyway, Amazon thought I would like it because I get everything Lawrence publishes (adoring fan of the When Tomorrow Calls trilogy and love her short stories). I don't know anything about MJ Krause but I've come to understand that he created the world of these books and then other authors set stories in that world. I put off downloading the books because, as I wrote above, urban fantasy isn't something I go for. But I found myself in need of a reading sorbet and jumped in with the 6 volume set.

Now, on the Kindle you get all 6 books in one file so it is basically one long book. The authors were fiendlishly clever and end each of the first five books on a cliffhanger. If you are a weak-willed reader like me, you find yourself thinking "well I'll just start the next book to see what happens next". And then the next book ends on a cliff-hanger and, well, if the word binge comes to mind you know what happened to me.

The books are set in a version of Johannesburg, South Africa where magic, trolls, orcs, dwarves, elves, and goblins exist unknown to the non-magical public. There is a unit within the Scorpions dedicated investigating paranormal crimes. If you are not from South Africa, the Scorpions (now disbanded) were an independent multidisciplinary agency that investigated and prosecuted organised crime and corruption. 

The narrator of the story is Jacqueline Denna Knight (aka Jax), a  crossbow and wand wielding wizard/private investigator (she finds things) who likes nothing more than dusting vampires. She aids the Scopions —specifically her best friend Morgan who heads up this unit within the Scorpions — when tricky cases come up. She gets pulled into such a case when bodies start to accumulate and, at the same time, can't resist taking on other cases — a girl has to  make ends meet somehow. In quick order, she finds herself trying to find out whose is stacking up bodies around town, in the middle of an orc gang war, finding mystical objects, and rying to avoid being killed by a vampire faction that seem sto have taken a violent dislike to her.

The authors do an excellent job of adding layers in each succeeding book building to the climactic 6th book. Because this is a first person narrative, we are seeing everything through Jax's eyes and what she sees may not be true and I like the way the authors use this to keep the reader a little off balance.

I hate to use the review cliche "breakneck" but this series really does move at a breakneck page. All the action takes place in about two weeks. This is part of why I found myself binging, the action in unrelenting.

Jax is good, strong, resourceful, female protagonist whose major fault is to act first, think of consequences later which can, in a good way, frustrate the reader who wants to give her a good shake. It also propells the story. One thing that amused me is that Jax adheres to the private investigator trope of getting beat up and knocked out,— a lot.

Speaking of tropes, Lawrence give us an interesting and fun working of the urban fantasy world — good, evil, quest, characteristics of the inhabitants, etc. One of the authors really likes food because there are quite a few detailed and mouth-watering descriptoins of meals. They made me want to find a dwarf tavern.

The Blood Magic series is a fun and very fast-paced read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and eagerly anticipate the next series of 6 books,  The Cursebreaker, which will be set in the same universe but with different characters. I can't say that I have been completely pulled into the whole urban fantasy genre but this world created by Krause and interpreted by Lawrence has me hooked.

If I've piqued your interest in this series, I recommend the boxed set. Trust me, you'll be very annoyed with yourself when you get to the end of a book and don't have the next one waiting.

Keywords: South Africa fiction, urban fantasy