Captive Magic, Sentinels #3

Title: Captive Magic, Sentinels #3
Author: Angela Benedetti
Cover artist: BSClay
Publisher: Torquere Press
Amazon: Buy Link Captive Magic
Genre: fantasy/scifi romance
Length: 307 pages/92000 words
Rating: 4.75 stars out of 5

A guest review by Sirius
Summary: This third book in this fantasy series delivered a great love story for Manny and satisfied me just as much as first two did.

Blurb:

Teleporter Breck Bayes made a deal with a demon to save the life of his little sister Amanda, who was dying of cancer. The demon expects Breck to work off the debt — as a thief who can get past any walls or locks. If Breck balks, Amanda’s cancer will come back, and she’ll die. Breck’s a good guy, but a few trinkets versus Amanda’s life? It’s no contest.

Manny hears about Breck’s popping around town and uses his own talents to find and confront him. Sentinels are supposed to prevent the magegifted from using their talents to steal, by force if necessary, but then he gets the whole story. Manny understands family, and he decides that his Sentinel persona is going to have to suck it up and deal while he helps Breck get out from under the demon — even if it means becoming an accomplice to the thieving while they plot Breck’s escape. But then the demon notices Manny, whose truesight and seeking would be very useful in its quest to own things that don’t properly belong to it, and suddenly it’s not only Breck who’s in trouble.

Review:

Cole reviewed the first book in this series here and I reviewed the second here. The main action in this book takes place while everybody on the team was busy in Seattle, if you read the second book you know that Manny did not go with them and this book lets us know what he was so busy dealing with. And he was apparently *very* busy. The storyline itself almost ignores (we see couple of phone calls and the rest of the team shows up closer to the end of the story) what was happening in Seattle and I guess you could read this book and not be that confused, however I really advise against doing so.

You *will* miss on the world building and these books have one of the most imaginative world building I had ever seen in the fantasy m/m books. Magic has strict rules and the magic users have strict limitations and going against those rules usually brings consequences on their heads and raises some curious ethical issues. I still cannot forget the ending of the second book and think about how the actions of the certain characters changed my perception of them.

This book starts slow, in fact for the first five-six chapters I was wondering whether I indeed was reading the book three of the same series, so slow it felt. However as the story progressed the more I thought that the writer made a very wise choice to start slow, because characters were established so clearly that I could see and hear them in my mind. I was especially pleased to see how real supporting characters felt and I loved Breck’s mother and little sister a lot. I thought that giving supporting characters their voices, by describing the neighborhoods where Breck and Manny lived, they acquired more depth. I mean, when I read about the character with firmly established roots, such character becomes much more realistic and believable to me and I thought this was what happened here.

So, bottom line is I have no problems with slow start of the book. When the magical issue both of the guys have to deal with takes more and more priority , the tension slowly increases, because it becomes really important for everybody’s involved to get the creature off Breck’s back and make sure that his sister will not die and as blurb hints Manny is also having problems because of his involvements.

Interestingly, the author managed to approach the solving the problem as a magical puzzle of the sorts (cannot really say more for the fear of spoilers) and still made me worry and care about very real ramifications for everybody involved, if that puzzle will not be solved. I thought the mix of magical and mundane issues was extremely well done. The book is a real fantasy/scifi just as much as it was a romance and I would probably say that fantasy plays a little more important role than a romance does, or at least both storylines are sharing the spotline.  This book contains one of the best explanations of magesight, one of the best descriptions of protection spell and the cool twist on how time behaved in a place Breck and Manny visit at some  point in the story was not something I could remember reading about. Oh I am sure it was not a unique idea, but the fact that I do not remember reading about it at least makes it a pretty original idea in my head. Here is protection spell how it works in this book.

“The snotty kid was drawing some kind of design in a mid-air, using his fingers like markers or something to make shining lines that just…hovered. Like floating neon tubes.

“What is that?”

“Magic,” said Manny, his voice still low. “That’s how you cast your spells. One way, anyhow. I think it’s some kind of protection spell.”

Breck nodded and watched. He didn’t even bother to hide his fascination. It reminded him of drawing quick lines and shapes in the air with sparklers when he was a little kid, only it stayed instead of fading out a second later.

After a minute, Aubrey said, “Hold still,” and hummed a couple bars of something Breck didn’t recognize. It didn’t even sound like proper music, but before the sound faded, the glowing pattern split in two like an amoeba. Half flew toward Breck and the other half toward Manny. Before Breck could do more than yelp, the thing shrank down to palm-size and sank into his chest. He could still see it there, which was damn freaky. He rubbed at it, but it stayed like a stubborn stain; he couldn’t even feel anything, although he could still see it.”

I have to say though that while I never doubted the grave consequences for Breck, his sister and Manny for not figuring out how to deal with demon thing, for quite some time while  I was reading I did not think that the ethical issues in this book rose to the level of the ending of the second book. I mean who would not have stolen anything in order to save a loved one dying from any illness? Now, if Breck would have been asked to kill in exchange for his sister’s life, that could have been something to wonder whether he would really do it and whether the means are worth the ends. And then BOOM – suddenly the stakes (ethical and others) went up and then the stakes went up again and I completely stopped complaining 🙂

And while the guys had an adventure, they slowly (maybe not that slowly because adventure did not last that long, but I thought that it was believable due to unusual circumstances that brought them together) fell in love and it was sweet, but beware that the story has a lot of plot and characterization but very little sex. If you have read two previous books in the series it should not come as a surprise though.

And extra kudos to the writer for poking fun at the characters having sex while they were in grave danger – well, her characters almost did that, but it was very amusing to read anyway.

Highly recommended.