Marked By Magic - Lindsay Buroker

   2023; 337 pages.  Book 1 (out of 2) in the “Tracking Trouble” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Humorous Fantasy; Dragons; Urban Fantasy.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    Nobody likes dark elves.  Arwen Forester has her own particular reasons for hating them.  She has a spider tattoo on her arm to remind her of that.  You can see it on the book’s cover image.

 

    Arwen lives quietly on her father’s farm out in the sticks.  One day she is visited by an elf warrior who demands she tell him where to find the local dark elves.  He was rather uppity about the whole thing.

 

    The elf found Arwen by assuming the form of a dragon, and using a dragon’s heightened sense to locate her.  That means he’s probably a cross-breed: half-elf and half-dragon.

 

    Nobody likes half-breeds.  They even have a pejorative word for them: mongrels.  Arwen knows all about being called a mongrel.  She’s half human.

 

    And half dark-elf.

 

What’s To Like...

    Marked By Magic is set in the present-day Seattle area, with a particular focus on the suburb of Bellevue.  It reminded me of Jim Butcher’s Chicago setting for his Dresden Files series: a minority comprised of magical creatures living among the vastly more numerous humans, with some inevitable friction and strained interactions arising between the two groups.  The main difference is that Marked By Magic is lighter in tone than the Harry Dresden books; the mood is closer to Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series.

 

    The main plotline follows Arwen’s tense relationship with the elf-dragon Starblade.  Arwen, an expert tracker, initially agrees to hunt down the dark elves for him, but later accepts money from other parties to hunt down half-breed dragons.  Needless to say, this leads to trust issues for both protagonists.

 

    If you like your Urban Fantasy books to contain lots of magical critters (I do!), you’ll love this book.  Besides the standard mix of elves, dwarves, dragons, gnomes, and ogres; there are also 7-foot-tall trolls, half-orcs, kobolds, and even the rarely seen soul drykars and vampire jellyfish.  One immortal from the magical world gets mentioned here: the spider-demon Zagorwalek (try saying that name ten times real fast).  He, and other gods, don’t play a big part in this tale, but I wonder if that’s going to change as the series progresses.

 

    There's lots of adventure and intrigue to keep you turning the pages, but Lindsay Buroker also finds ways to mix in some insightful thoughts about prejudices against others, be they mongrels, magical species, or just anyone different than what we are.  I also was thrilled to learn that the game of chess is played by the fantasy-world folks, since I’ve been a chess devotee all my life.  But over there it’s called Thyslyar.

 

    The ending was suitably tense and exciting, with a couple of neat plot twists thrown in, by both the good guys and the baddies.  The Epilogue clears up the money-for-hire angle, as well as one that concerned coffee grounds (say what?!).  The Arwen/Starblade plot thread remains open, but hey, that’s what sequels are for.

 

Kewlest New Word…

Mycophile (n.): a devotee of mushrooms.

Others: Inimical (adj.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 1,416 ratings and 85 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.57*/5, based on 850 ratings and 48 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Are these leaves?”  Amber plucked something out of [Arwen’s] hair.  “And twigs?  Didn’t you shower and wash this . . . nest this morning?”

    “I did shower.  But then I walked through the woods to Duvall so I could get a ride over here from Sigrid.”

    “Did you drag your hair along the trail?”  Shaking her head, Amber fished out another leaf and grabbed a brush and comb.

    “It wasn’t light yet, and the branches can claw at you.  There aren’t any direct trails, so sometimes I have to clear the way.”

    “With your head?”  (loc. 2512)

 

    Amber turned back and lifted a finger, but she paused when she spotted Arwen’s bare forearms.  The loose sleeves of the jumpsuit had fallen to her elbows.  Arwen jerked her hands down.

    “You got another weird tattoo?”  Amber gaped.  “What is that?  A dragon?”

    “Yes.  It was not by choice.”

    “What?  You were walking by a tattoo shop, and the artist pounced you with an ink gun?”

    “I . . . was walking inside a dragon’s lair, and he pounced.  With magic.”

    “What is wrong with your life?”

    “Recently, a lot.”  (pg. 2579)

 

Kindle Details…

    Marked By Magic presently sells for $0.99 at Amazon.  The sequel, Bound By Blood, is priced at $4.99.  The third book in the trilogy, Driven By Destiny, is due to be released on January 10, 2024.  Lindsay Buroker is a prolific writer of both Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels, available both as standalones and in bundles, and all reasonably priced, and occasionally offered at enticing discounts.

 

Out of the cranberry bog and into the pig wallow.  (loc. 1048)

    I couldn’t find much to quibble about in Marked By Magic.  There’s only a smattering of profanity (6 instances in the first 25%), and that helps keep the story’s tone light-hearted.  There are, however, a couple of “adult situations”, but those keep the story’s tone from becoming too juvenile.

 

    I only noted one typo, an Amber’s/Arwen’s mix-up, and even then, I only caught it when choosing the first excerpt for this review.  Whoever the editors were, they did a good job.

 

    Last, and least, Arwen apparently is a character in an earlier Lindsay Buroker Urban Fantasy series, who now gets to be the main protagonist in one.  There were a number of references to Arwen’s backstory, all of which were lost on me since this was my first book by this author.  But that’s not her fault, it’s mine for choosing a spin-off series.

 

    That’s all I can gripe about.  Marked By Magic was a literary treat for me, and a great introduction to an author I’ve been meaning to try for quite some time.  So if you’ve read all the Sookie Stackhouse books, and are looking for a similar type of world-setting, I highly recommend you give this one a try.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  The brief mention of soil amendments strongly resonated with me.  My 45-year career as a chemist was with a company whose main line of products were soil amendments.  They’re the reason you and I aren’t starving despite huge amounts of farmland being turned into housing developments.