The garden is still taking up most of my time just now, so not much progress on the writing front, but that’s normal for me for the longer days and warmer weather. So, on the back of last week’s review of the prequel novelette, SPLINTERCAT, I thought I’d go right ahead and share my review of book #1 in the series: SPLINTERED MAGIC.

Blurb

Brigid Donovan is down on her luck. Her husband dumped her for the biggest stereotype around, his secretary, and her family mansion is a decaying wreck. All she wants is to get it restored, enjoy the peace and quiet of living in eight hundred acres of primordial forest, and rebuild her life.

Fate seems to be against her. First, her cat starts to speak to her. And what does he say? He’s not what he seems to be—seriously? Like a talking cat is normal. He does tell her that she’s the great-granddaughter of a fae lord, and very powerful. Only, that doesn’t seem right. Where’s her magic? Why didn’t her family tell her?

Things aren’t as picture perfect as they seem in her hometown of Kilchis, Oregon. In fact, they haven’t been for a long time. For one thing, her restoration team is a pack of werewolves, and her new bestie is a witch. What’s going on? Brigid has to find out fast or she could lose it all—her mind, her magic, and her life.

Splintered Magic by Jilleen Dolbeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Moving into her old family home while renovation works are ongoing, Brigid believes the stress of her divorce has affected her sanity. Why else would she be hearing the resident cat talking to her?
A visit to a doctor reunites her with an old boyfriend, and bring the information that no, she’s not going mad, but magic is real, and her magical heritage has been hidden from her. Now, to protect herself, she must find the artifacts that contain it.
And then her builder—who happens to be a werewolf—falls to his death from the scaffolding around her house, and it appears a curse is responsible.
The opening of this book seems a little familiar, having read the prequel, Splintercat. But of course, at the end of that story Brigid’s memory is wiped, and so she sees things afresh all over again. Once I’d confirmed I wasn’t reading the same book over again, I settled comfortably into this one. However, being a full-length novel, it doesn’t have the pace of the preceding novelette, and at times, for me, it lacked narrative drive. Brigid’s unquestioning acceptance of magic was a bit hard to swallow, and while Craig’s death is shocking, Brigid carries on with her life almost as it hasn’t changed in so many fundamental ways in such a short space of time.
Splintered Magic is an easy read, well written and visually clear with highly distinct characters and great dialogue. Mr. Mittens clearly has a different approach to events, but then he comes from a different dimension, and he’s a cat, so that was believable too. On the downside I found some of Brigid’s choices to be a bit silly in order to further the plot, and I wish there had been a ‘ticking clock’ much earlier on to create a more gripping read.
The finale picks up the pace and I wizzed through that, only to find a massive dangling thread introduced to give us a cliff hanger ending. I’m quite invested in the characters and the story, but with my extreme dislike of cliff hangers the jury is currently out on whether I will read the next in series.


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