Sorcery and Small Magics - Maiga Doocy - ★★

AUTHOR: Maiga Doocy

SERIES: The Wildersongs Trilogy #1

GENRE: Fantasy-Romance

PUBLICATION DATE: October 15, 2024

RATING: 2 stars.

In a Nutshell: A fantasy-romance about two rivals forced to work together to overcome a challenge. Decent amount of fantasy, barely any romance. Interesting magic system. Annoying lead characters. SLOWBURN (use of CAPS deliberate!). Aimed at adults, but strong YA feels. First of a planned trilogy; incomplete ending. This is an outlier review.

Plot Preview:

Leo Loveage‘s passion lies in music, but he is forced to continue his family legacy and study sorcery to satisfy his father. He can handle small magic, but fails miserably at grand magic. To add to his troubles, magic partners have been reassigned this semester, and Leo now has to work with his long-time nemesis Sebastian Grimm, a talented grump.

A muddled spell causes Leo to be under Sebastian’s command. They both realise that if anyone discovers this mistake, their future will be in jeopardy because of the forbidden magic involved. The duo need to reverse the spell ASAP. Will they be successful before the upcoming magic trials?

The story comes to us in Leo’s first-person perspective.

Bookish Yays:

🎻 The use of music in the plot through Leo’s violin skill and its incorporation in magic – harmonious.

🎻 The dual methodology of magic, needing a scriver and a caster. Not an original idea, but handled well in the book.

🎻 The first few chapters – really great. I was absolutely involved in the narrative until the initial phases of the curse.

Bookish Okays:

🔮 Too many threads and hardly anything resolved. I know this is the first of a series, but things can’t be left so utterly dangling.

🔮 There are a few good side characters, but their development is just average. Most are one-noted, restricted to being good or bad with no depth. I especially wanted more of Agnes and Cassius.

🔮 The world has great potential, what with the presence of sorcerers and outlaws and monsters. But it is also disjointed, with too many disparate elements. Perhaps the subsequent books will be more cohesive.

Bookish Nays:

👺 Leo. Many readers hate unlikeable leads, but my pet peeve is protagonists such as Leo. Destructive towards others and himself, not subconsciously but deliberately. Imagine being self-sabotaging and still crying ‘poor-me’! Worse, he is deficient in common sense and shows no growth over the course of the story.

👺 Sebastian Grimm. When one lead is annoying, it helps if the other one balances the scale. Unfortunately, Grimm is as grim as his name indicates, but with no legitimate reason. He feels like a wannabe-Darcy without the wealth or class or self-awareness.

👺 The choice of writing the story in Leo’s first-person perspective. Problematic because of his repetitive, self-obsessive whining. I’d have liked to hear Sebastian’s POV in alternate chapters because the strong silent type is more appealing than the nonsense-talking type.

👺 Too many tropes. Grumpy vs sunshine. Enemies to “lovers” (very stretched, but still present.) Forced proximity. And more.

👺 Too much alcohol consumption. 🙄

👺 The characters’ ages aren’t specified but it is clear that they are somewhere in their late teens or early twenties. I expect adults in a book aimed at adults. There is a strong YA feel to the story because of the immaturity on display.

👺 The problem-causing magic-spell subplot had amazing potential on the lines of ‘Ella Enchanted’. However, the execution is really disappointing. A subsequent reveal connected to the spell further raises a red flag as it blurs the lines between genuine emotion and magical interference.

👺 The second half is mostly illogical. The focus is just on their reparative quest with no update on what’s happening ‘back home’. After a point, I kept zoning out of the narrative.

👺 The “romance”. Honestly, one should feel like rooting for the couple to come together in romances. It didn’t happen at all in this book. While there is never too much focus on physical appeal (I appreciate this), there is zero chemistry between the leads.

👺 The pacing is utterly slow, and I mean, reallllyyyy slllloooowwwwwwww. A 400+ page book, and the relationship hasn’t even begun. I don’t mind slowburn stories at all, but even a slowburn ‘burns’ at some point. This one doesn’t even flicker!

👺 The ending. I read all those pages for this ending?! 🤦🏻‍♀️ It’s not even worth being called a cliffhanger. It was more like an end to the first episode of a TV series.

All in all, this is a book with an identity crisis. It includes so many things that the result is a hodgepodge muddle. I like cozy fantasy, but even cozies must have some high-stakes investment. This was cozy to a snooze level.

While taking this book, I wasn’t aware that it was the first of a planned series. Given my experience, I think it is better for everyone involved if I don’t continue with this.

That said, mine is very much an outlier opinion. This debut has been garnering some pretty strong reviews from other readers. So do peruse through them before you take a call on this work.

Officially, this book is tagged as a Fantasy-Romance. But it might work better for you if you read it as a YA Fantasy. And if you aren’t looking for a romance-dominant storyline. And if you are okay with dragged pacing. And if you are tolerant of lead characters who love to destroy their own chances and then playing the victim game.

My thanks to Little Brown Book Group UK and Orbit for providing the DRC of “Sorcery and Small Magics” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work better for me.