35) Hard Magic by Laura Anne Gilman

College grad, magic user and unemployed Bonnie Torres gets an interesting but strange call for what she hopes is a job interview. She has no idea what the job is for or if she even applied for it. The message was short and the only details she is given is a time and place. Her mentor J isn't really happy about her even contemplating going to the meeting but Bonnie needs a job.

After a very unusual interview, Bonnie finds herself being a part of the Private, Unaffiliated, Paranormal Investigations or PUPI for short. The team is made up of 5 people who are expected to mix magic and forensics to solve cases that the normal police can't. Their first job isn't easy. Trying to prove that a double suicide was in fact murder has them stumped and with their combined lack of experience it makes things even harder. Also there are people who don't want to see PUPI exist in any way shape or form. That makes this job more interesting that Bonnie could ever imagine.

I have to admit that my knowledge of this author is practically zilch. I remember picking up one of her Retriever books a few years ago and for some reason it didn't grab my interest. However this new series did capture my attention. Magic combined with forensics totally caught my eye and I had to give this one a try.

Hard Magic wasn't a bad read. Being the first in a series the first half of this book was really laying the foundations and I admit I enjoyed discovering this new concept and character. The author has managed to create something different and although I believe this series links to the Retrievers in some way it made no difference to this story that I haven't read the other books.

A little slower that I expected I did really like the forensics and magical aspect of this book. The writing style, characters and location also kept me reading this to the end but I think I need a second book in this series to make a final judgement. This was certainly worth reading but I felt like Hard Magic is just the start of something bigger and that there are more greater things to come.

One thing I have to say about this book is that it has reawakened my interest in the Retrievers series. If they are anything like Hard Magic then I definitely want to try them again. Off to add the first one to my wishlist!

Hard Magic is due out in May.

The Retrievers Series -

Staying Dead
Curse in the Dark
Bring it On
Burning Bridges
Free Fall
Blood From Stone