Inked Magic by Jory Strong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Title: * Inked Magic
Author: Jory Strong
Series: 1st in series
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Berkley
Format: paperback
Date/Year: 2/2012
Reviewed by: ElaineReads
*This book was provided to me by the publisher for review.
Summary from the publisher:
With the touch of her palms to the skin of a crime victim, San Francisco tattoo artist Etaín can see the faces of the guilty and draw them. Changeling elf but unaware of it, at odds with her police captain father and FBI agent brother, magic and gift have put her in the path of two compelling men.
Cathal Dunne, the son of an Irish mob boss, needs Etaín’s help finding the rapists who left his cousin for dead. Eamon, a powerful elf lord, is determined to make her his consort-wife.
Her gift once made permanence impossible when it came to a lover. Now, as she approaches the transition to fully Elven, her survival depends on keeping two. One of the men is willing to share her. The other isn’t-until the search for a sexual predator turns deadly, and only by paying magic’s price will there be any future at all.
My Musings:
First off, let me say I am a big fan of Jory Strong’s books. My favorite series is Supernatural Bonds . . . or Crime Tells . . . or maybe, Fallon Mates. Anyway, I love her books. Inked Magic is the beginning of a new paranormal series and I am already longing for the next book.
Etain is a changeling elf although she thinks she is human. She knows she has the gift of seeing crimes through the victim’s eyes, but she does not associate it with magic. Cathal, who really is a human, needs her to find his cousin’s rapists. The final member of the menage is a full Elf Lord named Eamon.
The only character I really liked is Etain. She uses her gift to help others even though it makes her extremely ill. Her family has abandoned her unless they need her help, but that has not stopped her from making a new family of friends. These friends have wonderful and distinctive personalities and I cannot wait to meet them again in subsequent books.
I really did not care for Cathal. He originally approached Etain in order to use her gifts. Although he did end up falling in love with her, he never appeared to really want to love her. Eamon, however, accepted her as his forever wife from the first meeting. Part of that was a power play due to her gifts, but I felt that he actually cared for her.
The storyline was engrossing with a number of subplots woven into it. Many of these were addressed in the book, but a few were left for the sequels. There a number of characters that I want to read their story. Etain’s brother definitely needs his own book.
The sex scenes were handled well. They were explicit without being coarse. My only concern was that the book is classified as a MFM menage and it was really more of a sharing relationship than a true menage. I expected the three of them to have sex together at some point which I do not remember happening.
As I previously stated, Jory Strong is a favorite author of mine. Inked Magic is another addition to her long line of wonderful books. She is already writing the sequel and I cannot wait for it to be published.
Elaine Reads . . . constantly! 