A really good mystery in a fantastic new magical world. Also, wow, what an incredible narrative voice! Striking and stylized without reading false.

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this fantasy eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

magic for liars (Sarah Gailey)

Title: magic for liars

Author: Sarah Gailey

Publisher: Macmillian-Tor/Forge

Publication Date: TODAY!! (hardcover/e-book)

ISBN: 978-1250174611

Source: NetGalley

I was excited to read this full-length novel from the author who brought us hippo cowboys.  This is a murder mystery set in a magical school.  Ivy is a professional PI that spends her time investigating cheaters and such.  She has always been upset that her twin sister got the magic and glory and she got the grit and mundane.  But this murder mystery could be the step that takes her to the next level.  Unfortunately this was a book that had problems and ended up being highly unsatisfactory.

The positive things that made me finish the book were:

- I loved the hippo books so much for their characters and world-building that I gave the author the benefit of the doubt.
- It had a very nice set-up.  I was highly engaged by the premise.  I expected the overall journey to be worth it.
- I liked some of the practical magic on display.  I particularly liked how healing magic worked.
- I enjoyed the characters Rahul and Mrs. Webb.
- There is good use of romantic consent in this book.
- There is some nice diversity in the book.

While those things keep me reading, the world-building and plot made it harder and harder to finish the book.  Unfortunately, there were major issues that made this an unlikable read for me.

- The Main Character - Ivy is a woe-is-me drunk who makes bad choices all the time.  The sympathy from the beginning is destroyed by her desperate and slightly pathetic choices.  She makes ridiculous decisions and then tries to justify how they work within the investigation.  She also uses the investigation as an attempt to play-act her life as a magician.  Someone was murdered and she wants to play make-believe.  It was odd.
- The Other Characters - I didn't really love any of the characters besides Rahul and Mrs. Webb.  And those two weren't particularly unique despite their enjoyability.  After the hippo books, I frankly expected more.
- The  Magic - I liked the practical, if silly, uses for some of the magic (like all the magic of Rahul) but how it works is never actually explained.  Also there is no real indication of what adults do with their magic other than teach.  Why do the magicians hide it from the world?  Is it used for the greater good ever?  It seems from this book that magic seems to be used for things like protecting the coffee machine from students and for the students to pass notes to each other.  I wanted more insight into the rules of magic and the uses that were only hinted at.
- The World-Building - I feel like neither Ivy's life in the "real" world or the school are truly set up as actual places.  They felt kinda like a two-dimensional film set only without the visual clues.  The suggestion of parts taking place in Oakland or Sunol seemed irrelevant to the story.
- The Chosen One trope - This felt shoe-horned in.  There is never a good explanation of what being the Chosen One actually means or what the consequences are going to be.
- The Romance - While Rahul was me favourite character, the romance subplot stalled the action and was pointless.  It did not need to exist at all.
- The Murder-Mystery - I knew immediately who-dun-it so it came down to wanting to know the whys and wherefores.  And I found those to be lackluster and stupid.  I get why the characters made those emotional choices but frankly didn't care.  It just all seemed so melodramatic and pointless for no reason.  And how the solution was exposed was silly.
- The Ending - One of the worst endings ever.  Ivy made two horrible and ridiculous choices.  The author decided to leave the ramifications of the case and the effects on the students and staff are not discussed.  The book ends in such an odd fashion that I thought there might another book coming.  Nope.  This be a standalone.

The author includes lots of dark topics in this book and then never explores any of the actual life consequences of such choices.  She ends the book with no closure or realistic ramifications.  Instead the entire plot felt more like a facade for Ivy to realize that a) her problem is herself; and b) for her to fall in lust.  Shame because I wanted to like this one.  Unfortunately it must walk the plank!  Arrrr!

So lastly . . .

Thank you Macmillian-Tor/Forge!

Goodreads has this to say about the novel:

Ivy Gamble has never wanted to be magic. She is perfectly happy with her life—she has an almost-sustainable career as a private investigator, and an empty apartment, and a slight drinking problem. It's a great life and she doesn't wish she was like her estranged sister, the magically gifted professor Tabitha.

But when Ivy is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a faculty member at Tabitha’s private academy, the stalwart detective starts to lose herself in the case, the life she could have had, and the answer to the mystery that seems just out of her reach.

To visit the author’s website go to:

Sarah Gailey – Author

To buy the novel go to:

magic for liars - Book

To add to Goodreads go to:

Yer Ports for Plunder List

Previous Log Entries for this Author

river of teeth – book 1 (Captain’s Log – Alternative History Sci-Fi)

taste of marrow – book 2 (Captain’s Log – Alternative History Sci-Fi)

A murder mystery set in a boarding school for mages? Ok, I'll bite. The mystery part is slight, with more work done on character development than actual sleuthing; the magic part is very technical (no wands waving and faux-Latin being yelled) or used as a form of cosmetics. Most of the time Ivy is either drunk or hungover, which made me wonder how she could possibly solve this. In fact, her conclusions appear to be almost stumbled into rather than any serious investigating. I also wish more of the students had played a role. Overall, rounding up from 3.5.

eARC provided by publisher.

First of all, I'd like to thank Tor Books for both the e-galley as well as a physical arc copy of this book, Magic For Liars. Both were sent to me in exchange for an honest review, but my thoughts are always my own and never bought!




Synopsis:

Ivy Gamble has never wanted to be magic. She is perfectly happy with her life—she has an almost-sustainable career as a private investigator, and an empty apartment, and a slight drinking problem. It's a great life and she doesn't wish she was like her estranged sister, the magically gifted professor Tabitha.

But when Ivy is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a faculty member at Tabitha’s private academy, the stalwart detective starts to lose herself in the case, the life she could have had, and the answer to the mystery that seems just out of her reach.

Review:

First of all, just check out the brilliant colors in this cover! I was immediately drawn to this book because of the strong, bold font and images. It is marketed as being The Magicians (in that it's set mostly at a school for mages) and Tana French ( an author whose books I've never read), but I can tell you that it started and ended strong. It strayed just a tad in the middle, and was a bit slow--also in the middle-- but ultimately an entirely satisfying stand-alone magical novel.

Relationship:

The estranged twins, one who has magic and one who does not, and their struggle to see eye-to-eye was a brilliant part of this story, and hits the visceral fear we all have of being the one left behind, the one not quite good enough. I loved Ivy and Tabitha's messy-real relationship.

The Rest:

Magical schools always draw me in, and though Hogwarts was not part of my childhood, it has played a big part of my adult life so far and I love it. There's just something wonderful about a magical school. Osbourne was no different. The magic in this world, too, is very cool, though almost entirely unexplained, and leaves the reader feeling almost exactly like Ivy: confused and hopelessly lost.

Teenage angst (though perhaps unavoidable) gets in the way of the brutal, brilliant storytelling a little too often.

The climax, when it came, surprised me.


I give this book a solid 4 stars.

The beautiful cover of this book peaked my interest upon first viewing. And then I kept seeing it on BEST OF SUMMER lists. I was lucky enough to get an ARC, and it did not disappoint.
Sarah Gailey has created a universe where some are gifted with magic, and some are not. Ivy is not. Her twin sister is. That's just a first step in the divide between them.
Ivy is now a small-time private detective and finds herself investigating a gnarly murder at the very school for magic where her sister teaches. She feels out of her depth, but perseveres to try to prove to her estranged sister that whether or not she has magic, she can indeed solve this major of a crime.
I was sucked into this world, and I do love a good boarding school novel. This checked a lot of boxes for me: strong female leads, unreliable narrators, magic as normalcy, and a murder in a library!
I recommend this debut book highly, and I truly hope that Gailey has some more magic up her sleeves.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for the digital ARC.

I loved Magic for Liars. Let me just get that out of the way. It was a really refreshing and super addictive read.

Characters:
Having Ivy Gamble as a narrator was an absolute joy. She is flawed and unreliable as a narrator which makes her all the more fun and likeable. Ivy’s relationship with her sister Tabitha is the real star of this book. We are given more and more of it, even more than Ivy and Rahul’s romantic relationship. I felt as though Gailey gave me everything I needed to know about the characters while unraveling the mystery. The students were fleshed out and were complex and their lives felt real. I did wish we had more interactions with the rest of Alexandria’s crew because they were framed so interestingly in the beginning. However, this story is framed as Ivy’s and it does work with what we got.

Plot:
Gailey’s plot is very character driven. The plot stems from the mistakes and lies characters make. Here, the fact that we are at a magic school is secondary to the characters and the choices they make. To take it even further, the murder of Sylvia even seems secondary to the relationships within the book. However, there is a momentum. I couldn’t put it down because I had to know what happened next—will Ivy’s lies to herself and Rahul unravel? Will we find out what the notes are about? How much are all the characters lying to us? The plot was intriguing and the mystery compelling but the characters are what truly shine in Magic For Liars. I would definitely read this book again to see if there were any hints that I missed.

Writing:
There were times where I thought the writing leaned into the noir detective trope a little too heavily but I also think that was Ivy herself leaning into that trope to frame her own narrative. To frame herself as a strong independent person when she was just truly someone afraid of letting others in. I think the reveal of her self-perception is perfect then. Furthermore, I felt for the mystery aspect that there were just enough hints to make me feel satisfied as a reader while I kept on guessing. Gailey works with her characters in the grayest areas and excels at pulling on those choices and consequences to make the reader feel conflicted about every single character. Except Rahul because he is a pure cinnamon bun. (But that’s also from Ivy’s point of view so, you never know!)

Overall, I really enjoyed Sarah Gailey’s Magic for Liars!
4.5/5 Stars

A mystery where Ivy, a private investigator, has to address a potential murder in a magic school, where her own twin sister Tabitha is a teacher—her sister, who was gifted with magic, while herself wasn’t. That’s a recipe for disaster, or at least, for tense relationships and/or resentment.

And I enjoyed, indeed, the out-of-balance relationship between the two sisters, based on a lot of unsaid things, feelings and resent left to simmer for years, with each contending with a difficult event in a way that made the other sister believe they didn’t care, or not so much. Well, it was especially imbalanced when Ivy was concerned, since she was the one at home when the said event occurred, and had to live through it with the feeling that Tabby was too busy with her studies. But this long-festering resentment also came hand in hand with a wistful, half-buried, never fully admitted, desire for magic as well: Ivy telling herself she’s fine as she is, that she doesn’t want magic, can never really hide the regret that magic separated her from her twin. A good chunk of the story deals with this complicated relationship, as well as with Ivy wondering “what if” (what if she had been magic, too?), and seeing herself as the woman she never was, and that she probably wouldn’t have minded being. Along with her investigation, this leads her to spin more and more lies: some appearing as necessary, to throw the potential culprit off-balance while Ivy is fishing for clues, and some that are, let’s say, less justified, if not by her feelings.

On the other hand, there were times when Ivy came off as wallowing in self-pity a little too much for my liking, and when she became unsympathetic rather than touching. So the character development and relationships were interesting in general, though tedious at those times I mentioned.

The magic itself is not all stars and sparkles, and this makes it more interesting than neat spells and wand-waving. First, it can be pretty gross. Healing spells, for instance, are gruesome and difficult, and only the best mages can attempt them without killing themselves or their patient. And there’s also something twisted and petty to the way some of the students use their magic—one of the things Ivy reflect upon: they could do so much with it… but they’re still teenagers wrapped in their own drama, and so use it in a very self-centred and sometimes mean way.

The mystery part was where I think the novel wasn’t as strong as it could’ve been. The crime itself is one of magic (not a spoiler—you see the discovery of the body in the first chapter), and this, of course, throws additional difficulty in the path of our investigator, since she’s not familiar with spells and with what mages can or can’t do. Which is partly why she needs to do so much fishing. Yet at the same time, I felt that it lacked tension, that Ivy wasn’t as threatened as she could have been. And the clues were either something she stumbled upon (so not exactly screaming “investigation” here), or so subtle that they were really difficult for a reader to spot. Not to mention some parts of the ending. Some things were left unfinished, and while I do enjoy an open ending, here something was missing—some closure when it came to certain characters and facts, who/which were in fact sort of… brushed aside as “that was bad and they did a bad thing and oh it’s the end, bye.”

Conclusion: 3 to 3.5 stars? I quite liked this novel, but it’s a like” and not a “love” here.

Murder mystery at a magical high school... I'm sold. I loved the pace of this book, it kept me intrigued the entire time. I loved the possibilities magic brought to the story. I was able to figure out some of the twists prior to them happening, BUT there was always that little extra where I was still like, WTF? Really enjoyable, would recommend.

This was an interesting read. Ivy is a private investigator. Her twin, Tabitha, is a teacher at a private high school for magic users. Tabitha has magic, Ivy does not. This caused a rift between the sisters when they were younger, and now that they're adults, they still aren't close. When Ivy is hired to investigate the death of a teacher at the school Tabitha works at, Ivy sees this as a chance to maybe get closer to her sister. Is the death a suicide as the police stated, or is it a murder as the headmaster suspects. Is it a student? Another teacher?

This was a quick read, and I overall enjoyed it. The ending felt a bit rushed, but I would definitely read more Ivy Gamble mysteries if more were written.

Read this one because someone compared it to The Rook. We have some magic, a school full of teenagers, and a murder. Lots of drama and secrets and I liked the dark ending. I really liked the world and I would totally read more if this ended up being a series. The book wasn’t as engaging as I thought it would be though. The main character was pretty whiney and I’m not sure if I’m a huge fan of her inner dialogue.

This book won me over, not that I was surprised. A murder mystery set at a magic school with a flawed female protag? Sign me up. Magic for Liars is exceptionally written, with such emotional depth this reader did tear up on a few occasions. The characters really drew me in, and I stuck around for the psychological drama. I found Ivy Gamble immediately likeable and relatable, and loved juicy conflict with the estranged twin sister.

The mystery unraveled at the perfect pacing, so much so that I devoured this fast-paced book in two eager sittings. And unlike other books I’ve read with magic schools that put magic on such a high pedestal (wink, nudge), it was refreshing and super relatable to see it from a non-magic person’s point of view. Magic is messy, and hard, and there are laws and rules, and not always the answer to every problem, especially the real-world issues teens half to face. Another great one, Tor. Loved it!! Can’t wait to pick up the hardcover when it releases.

Magic for Liars is a fun, fast read for those who like fantasy mixed with mystery. I'm always a sucker for reading books with a dark bent when it takes place at a boarding school, or a small liberal arts college in a quaint town. I blame Donna Tartt's The Secret History for this. Anyway, I rate this book 3.5 stars that I'm rounding up to four. I liked the premise of Magic for Liars, but I thought the book was too short with all the sub plots thrown in. It would have been fine without the romance in exchange for more character development. Heck, it even went a little overboard with the "Chosen One" plot line. I think it would have worked just to say some mages are more powerful than others. Don't let this deter you from reading it, though. It was still engaging and I recommend reading it.

Magic for Liars begins with a private investigator sent to a magic academy to solve a mysterious death in the library. It may sound like a game of Clue and it essential is but without the cardboard characters. Ivy Gamble is the private eye who usually investigates cheating husbands, insurance fraud and the like. The local magic academy has a mysterious death that has been classified as an accident using forbidden magic. Ivy is charged with discovering if it is an accident or murder. Ivy reinvents her self at the school putting on a persona that implies that she went to school with her sister, Tabitha Gamble. Tabitha is the instructor for Theoretical Magic at Osthorne Academy. Ivy and Tabitha have strained relationship. Tabitha was gifted with magical abilities and Ivy holds her responsible for not assisting their dying mother with her cancer diagnosis. This is not Hogwarts although there are still teenage problems. The characters are believable. The teens are filled with angst, resentment and anger. Ivy is a flawed individual whom you can not help but like. Several times throughout the book, Ivy almost gives up. She has cast everyone away in her life. She compares herself to teflon. Nothing sticks for her. There is a twist at the end of the mystery. It is like a reveal of the villain on Scooby Doo. Things are not what they seem. I hope the author revisits this character again in the near future.

Ivy and Tabitha are twins without the "twin bond." Tabitha is magic and Ivy is not and it is this difference that has kept them a part. Ivy would tell you that she does not want magic but this is a lie. So while Tabitha goes off to magic school Ivy muddles her way through life with some resentment for her sister. To be fair to Ivy that resentment had much to do with how Tabitha fooled Ivy with magic.

Things become muddied when Ivy, now a Private Investigator, is hired to solve the possible murder of a teacher, Sylvia, at the magic school where her sister Tabitha currently teaches Theoretical Magic. Being a non mage in a place full of mages is difficult for Ivy and at times she feels as if she is going crazy. The magic system in place is very interesting and scary with some of the things characters are able to achieve! I won't say too much more because I don't want to give away surprises. I am a dabbler in mysteries and I failed at solving it myself so for me this was a great read and I would recommend it to others.

There is a lot in the book left unsaid, although the mystery itself concludes, hopefully one day another magical book will come along and fulfill that informational need!

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Books for an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars -

I'm not quite sure what I just read...I think Gailey was going for something genre-bending here, and while they achieved that, it left me feeling quite disoriented and unsure of whether I liked the book or not. I'm unused to reading detective novels outside of a series, and the combination of a mystery with magic was really intriguing to me. A female PI solving a crime at a magic school?? Count me in! Concept-wise, I give Gailey full points, and I have a feeling there will be a lot of people who really enjoy this book.

For me, it fell pretty flat. There was a lot going on, and unfortunately a lot of it got lost underneath details, side plots, and other stories. I was really there for the story of what happened to the murdered woman, and the relationship between Ivy and her sister but I ended up getting magical theory, a prophecy about a Chosen One, multiple romantic sub-plots, and so. much. teenage. angst. Honestly, this is what sank this book for me - I obviously knew it was set at a school but I was not expecting it to read like an angsty YA mystery, which unfortunately is what I feel I got.

<em>Imagine you're a candle, and your wick is made of glass</em>

I'm honestly not sure where to begin.

This book scraped me raw. To describe it as ironic nior murder mystery Hogwarts, while more or less accurate, is to do such a disservice to the achingly deep psychological drama that Gailey has crafted.

This is the kind of book that when you finish reading it, you don't know what to <em>do</em> with yourself. I mean, I'm going to put myself to bed, because I stayed up waaaaaay too late to finish it because I could. Not. Put it. Down.

But I'm sure you get what I'm saying metaphorically.

What do you get when you mix the styles of Agatha Christie, throwbacks to magical boarding schools à la Harry Potter, but set in California? You get Sarah Gailey's Magic For Liars, a murder mystery set in and around a magical boarding school in central California! I really enjoyed this one, and I knew I would because I enjoyed Gailey's River of Teeth novella duology released by tor.com in the last few years.

Magic For Liars weaves its way in and out of Ivy Gamble's involvement in solving a murder at the school at which her twin sister Tabitha teaches. In the process of solving the whodunnit, Ivy has to face and come to terms with her own nonmagical abilities, something she's been struggling with her entire life. She finds herself imagining the person she is to the person she could have been with magical abilities, and she has the opportunity to see who might have been had she been born with magical abilities.

Tie in this self-discovery and murder with other magical students, rumors of a chosen one, and familial relationship struggles, and Magic For Liars becomes a fully-fledged novel that has lingered with me since I finished it. I really enjoyed the fresh-noir feeling of the writing, the magic system and how gruesome and cruel magic could be, and all of the little references and throwbacks to popular mystery series and Harry Potter.

Like magic, mystery, murder, relationships between sisters, magical theories and conspiracies? Read this delight of a novel. It's out June 4.

Many thanks to Tor for a complimentary review copy! All opinions are my own.

Ivy Gamble has always wanted magic. The real magic. The magic her sister has. Instead of going to a magical high school and practicing spells and charms, she barely graduated normal high school. After her mother’s death, Ivy’s dream of joining the FBI disappeared, just like her relationship with her sister. After years of barely speaking, the sisters are thrown together when Ivy is hired to investigate a murder at Osthorne Academy, a school for magical children and where Ivy’s sister Tabitha, teaches.
Now, faced with a brutal murder, hormonal teenagers, a prophecy, and a new love interest, Ivy struggles to pick out the truths from the sea of lies and deception created by everyone involved.
This was a very twisty and turny mystery that kept me guessing all the way to the last page. Everyone had a secret to hide and some secrets were far more deadly than others. Ivy has her own big secret to keep-she lets everyone assume that she has magic and knows what they’re talking about. But Ivy doesn’t have a clue and this puts at her a significant disadvantage, especially when she catches the eye of a teacher and uses his interest in her to gain more information about the case. Ivy also spends a great deal of time lying to herself-about her own abilities, her own strengths, and her ability to consume bottles and bottles of booze.
Teenagers struggling to find their identity, young love, and emergency contraception played a huge role in this book and I felt it was handled really well. I really appreciated how the author wrote about abortions and how the school nurse was able to administer a magical abortion before a certain time frame and then referred the young women to medical doctors after that time had passed. This wasn’t done to make things more difficult for the young women, it was done to keep them safe and healthy. Amazing how writing about responsible health care feels so progressive.
This was a great magical mystery and I really enjoyed it. I really like fantasy that mixes with our own reality-the fact that magic is real but we don’t discuss with people who aren’t magical. Magic for Liars has the perfect blend of fantasy, mystery, and teenage drama to keep your interest from start to finish.
Full Disclosure Time: I received a free digital copy of this book from Netgalley. Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. All opinions are my own.

Ivy Gamble is a decidedly unmagical private investigator. No frills. No entanglements. Her mother died of cancer, her father checked out emotionally, and her relationship with her twin sister Tabitha is estranged, at best. Tabitha, though, isn't going the Jessica Jones route. Tabitha is magical. She got to go away to study at magical boarding school, and now she's a teacher at one of those schools. She's got the life Ivy always wanted.

But things aren't perfect at Osthorne, and after an unsatisfying external investigation, Ivy's brought in to solve a nasty murder. Complicating things are the hot teacher who doesn't know Ivy's not magic, and...Tabitha, who has more secrets than Ivy suspected.

This is a decided departure for Gailey, whose previous books have involved alternate histories of America, in which domesticated hippoes were a Thing. Those books were great fun, and so is this one. Boarding school murder books are one genre, and magical boarding schools are another, but Gailey mashes them up with glee. HIghly enjoyable.

Magic for Liars is a non-fantasy murder mystery, set in a magical world. The protagonist, Ivy Gamble, is an ordinary PI hired to solve a murder at a very unordinary (read: magical) academy - an academy at which her estranged twin sister, Tabitha, teaches, no less. (It's more Brakebills than Hogwarts, if you were wondering.) Since Ivy has never been magical, as she starts to encounter more and more magic during the course of her investigation, it remains as illusory and mysterious to her as ever. And, because it's written in first person, the magic system is completely alien to us - this is not a Sanderson novel. It's a very non-magical detective story (no revelio charms), wrapped in a fantastical book jacket (even the school graffiti is magic), and that juxtaposition made things very interesting for me, even if it was very frustrating for Ivy. Overall, I quite enjoyed it. The characterization was strongest for Ivy and Tabitha, obviously, but still solid for everyone else. The plot/mystery itself was, well, mysterious, with a twist I didn't see coming. The pacing was good, even if the third act felt a little rushed. If you like mysteries and/or fantasy, I'd definitely recommend it.