This took me very much by surprise. Early on in the book, someone references Harry Potter to Alex Black, first-person heroine of this story, and she corrects them: "More Harry Dresden than Harry Potter." And she's absolutely right. If this had not been so enjoyable, it might have been a bit too close to the Dresden Files in theme and tone for comfort (set in Vancouver instead of Chicago). Alex doesn't have Harry's firepower as a wizard, but like Harry she has to make her living, and like him she is good at what she does.

And like in the Dresden Files, nobody's safe. Death comes unexpectedly and early, and Alex herself (like Harry) takes a beating.

Her sidekick, however, is about as far from Lt. Karrin Murphy as it is possible to be.

So, yes, it is very, very reminiscent of Jim Butcher's series. But, fortunately, the writing carries it off. In fact, the only reason I gave this four stars instead of five was a smidgen of disappointment in the climax; the buildup was excellent, but I thought it fizzled a bit.

All in all, though, I had a great time with this – and I just bought the second book. (They're now being published under the pseudonym Alexis Blakely.) Looking forward to it!

The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.

I tried over and over and over to read this book. I started it, put it down and read something else, then went back to this book and couldn't get more than a few pages in before I ended up putting it down again. That cycle happened at least three times before I just couldn't force myself to pick this book up yet again. I kept going back to this book because I couldn't honestly think of any reason why I shouldn't like it. There was a strong main character with interesting powers, a brewing mystery, and the start of good world building, yet none of that was at all able to keep my interest. Needless to say, I didn't finish this story.

Title: Black Magic

Series: Black Records Book #1
Author: Mark Feenstra

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Blurb: Using her magic to help others is the only way Alex Black knows how to stay out of trouble herself. After years of living on the street and trying to come to terms with the growing ability she had to teach herself to control, she’s happy to have settled into the relatively quiet life of finding lost pets, crafting the odd charm, and helping people deal with annoying fae creatures and spirits.

But when Alex is asked to investigate the gruesome murder of an artifact dealer who’d lost his life trying to protect his latest acquisition, she’s thrown headlong into a world of danger that threatens to cut her career short at every turn. The closer she gets to tracking down the killer, the more dangerous the trail becomes, and the more Alex realizes what terrible things will happen if the true potential of the artifact is ever unleashed.

If you're a fan of the Dresden Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you'll love following along as the ever-sarcastic Alex Black takes on supernatural beings like vampires, fae, and evil wizards.

Thoughts: Black Magic is an urban fantasy novel featuring Alex Black, who we are introduced to when she is investigating the mysterious death of an artifact dealer. The storyline was a strong one and it was very original and interesting. Along the same lines as other novels in this genre, Alex lends her amazing survival to her odd cast of misfit friends. What is missing is some type of charismatic romantic love interest or soon-to-be love interest – I mention this solely because for some readers who are looking for a great urban fantasy read without any romantic entanglements, this is a plus. For me personally, I enjoy a slow-burning romantic aspect to my books – even if it plays a minimally small role in the overall story. I definitely missed that in this book, and kind of felt like I was waiting for a new character to appear the whole time that would take on that role, but it never happened. That’s not to take anything away from the author, however, who did a great job with the storytelling in this first book in the series. Feenstra did a great job and for me this was a really strong urban fantasy, so if you are a fan of this genre I imagine you will have a great new one-click author to add to your list!

Rate: B+

The second and third books (Black Market and Black Ice) are also available in this series now!

I find myself completely unable to read even halfway through the book.

It's practically a clone of Jim Butcher's Dresden series, but with a female protagonist. Even the writing style is similar. I find this sort of thing extremely distasteful, and this might be the worst job of "filing off the serial numbers I've ever seen.

Dont bother with this. Buy Jim Butcher's books, this is his jam.

First time reading this author, and I would like to see more. Could have used some more polish, but the worldbuilding is solid, and I'll be watching this series go forward I hope!

I did not like this book. The world building was nonexistent and from the beginning I had a difficult time grasping the character. Alex is an orphan/foster kid who used drugs to escape her troubles growing up alone and with magic she could not control. We don't really know anything about magic and neither does she, but she appears to perform increasingly complex spells easily and has some unknown power inside her that she has used once to bake someone to a crisp. No biggie and not mentioned again. You get the feeling that everyone in the supe world knows she is something special except her. She is clueless and the reader is also. Then she has this slacker friend Chase who is also not who he seems--he's a thief with convenient knowledge of security systems, a computer genius and owns a gun. He is a seemingly overweight bad-ass. This made the book difficult to finish and impossible to like. I know there are other books after this and hope there was better world building, but i am not interested in reading any further installments.

This book reminded me strongly of the Dresden Files series, only with a reversal of gender roles. Alex is an underdog female mage with a sketchy background, and her sidekick is Chase, a gamer with no prior knowledge of the world of magic.

There's quite a lot of humour, and pop culture references (including a Dresden one) to go with the action and adventure. It's missing a more thorough introduction to Alex and her backstory, which would make it easier to understand her, but as a first book, it's a good hook into a long-term series.

I quite enjoyed Alex, her abilities, her humour, and her tendency to get into trouble, along with the familiar Canadian setting. What misadventures and over-her-head situations will she get into next? I'm already looking forward to finding out.

This is one of those rare occurrences where I both bought (a free copy from Amazon) and requested the same book from Netgalley (in exchange for my honest review) because the book sounded so good, yet I forgot I already had it from one of the sources.

One thing I hate: I had A LOT of questions about Alex that weren't answered, we get very, very little back story. I find out at the end of the book that there's a prequel which may provide those details. Not fair. Not only do we think we're reading the first book, but the prequel isn't even listed at Amazon at this time. You can only get it if you sign up for the author's mailing list. Yay, it's free, but it's too late. What back story we do get is at 44%.

Alex is apparently a mostly self trained mage who works little jobs magically unlocking things. She is
called in to find a murderer. This leap from a two bit "locksmith" to a PI/murderer chaser is a crazy leap and isn't logical. I found the story sluggish and rather uninteresting until the 70% mark.

We are introduced to a lot of characters, but like Alex, we get minimal details. I liked the character of Chase, but again there's a crazy leap of character, he is a couch potato gamer (with an interesting income source) who becomes a rabid hero type in the blink of an eye. I also couldn't see why Alex wasn't able to better explain her abilities to Chase so he knew her limitations to help their working as a team. Something important is revealed subtly about Mark but is never followed up on. Very frustrating.

I'd give this 1 out of 5 stars because I really had to push myself to finish it.