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yogicath's review
5.0
This boxset contains the first three books in the Midlife Mage series. The main character is Ceri (Ceridwen) Gault, a mage, an English teacher in a high school and mother of two, Dara and Jimmy. She has hidden what she is for the majority of her life and had some really bad experiences once people found out what she was, including her ex-husband selling her and her daughter into slavery! She has pretended to have little to no magic and pays her dues to the local kin organisation, whilst hiding her true abilities to keep her and her family safe.
Unfazed
This book sees Ceri (Ceridwen) Gault finally revealed as a mage and now under the protection of the Yaksha family she helped, when her son Jimmy’s girlfriend got replaced by a clone. This clone, called Mary, can’t return to her family as she looks identical to Liz, the girl she was to replace, and so now lives with Ramki, Nimaya and their daughter Priya. On top of all this she found out both of her kids were also mages, but had been hiding their powers from her. Her son Jimmy is now under contract with Johann Schmidt, the leader of the whole area’s magical community, and she has been assured of his safety, whilst her daughter Brea has escaped to go travelling, hoping to avoid any danger. Now she is no longer hidden as a weak powered lilim and having to pay protection fees to the lilim faction, she and her son are protected under the agreement Schmidt forced in, which stopped other kin magical beings disguised as humans) from stealing mages and using them as slaves, if they were already under someone’s protection. She has students to continue teaching English and grammar to, a teen who uses his well-connected family to ask for an extension for his homework, and then the head teacher asking her to take over the drama department’s end of term play!
She gets a message to call Mr Pryce, the kin’s leader, which she will ignore if possible, but then also gets a message from Priya to visit their leaders regarding a problem that has arisen. The last urgent issue was them trying to connect with the internet, but as they are providing her protection, she will call by and see what the issue is this time. When she is nearly at their secluded spot in a clearing outside of town, she has to stop suddenly on the icy roads, when a figure appears in front of her car. It isn’t a person as such, but an Unbodied, a being who refused to accept they had died and were very dangerous. They would suck the energy out of any living thing or body to keep themselves going and preferred humans! Luckily she is well versed in calling up spells and wards under pressure and she manages to get a ward in place, just before his hand can touch her, but she crashes her car. She calls her almost boyfriend Nick, a svartalfar warrior and artificer who has lived a lot longer than she has but will never reveal his age, to provide her with backup to stop the unbodied being and help to fix her car that it drained the battery of.
After cleaning the land magic of its dark force, where the yaksha lived, she had expended a lot of her magic and was suffering headaches and nose bleeds if she tried to use too much, too soon. Hopefully they only need a small spell from her and then Nick could take her home. She soon finds herself under yet another attack from some beings called Dregs and it is clear to her that someone is ignoring the direct law Schmidt had put in place about mages under protection, and they are trying to grab her. Only the presence of Nick helped her out this time. To add to the worries, her son is under Schmidt’s influence and he wants her to help with a ghost hunting film crew that are visiting the area, after one to many ghostly and other supernatural sightings among the human population. The kin leader’s first choice would be to just kill the entire film crew and make them disappear, but that would only bring more to their doors. She needs to see if she can offer a different option and stop there being a slaughter in her town. The different factions of kin aren’t exactly happy and she only has a week to sort the issue out, but at least she has some friends on her side and Nick is a great help. When a small troop of Goblins turn up, Ceri and Jimmy end up in a perilous situation and only the assistance of a manifestation of her magic will help her to escape and put an end to the slavery of one faction to be used as pawns by a powerful leader intent on causing chaos and strife to all. All Ceri wants is for her children to be safe and the kin to not have free reign on the poor human inhabitants of this town. That’s not too much to ask for is it?
Unbowed
Due to the events of the last book, she has overused her magical powers and she can’t access any of her magic. Mages are a high worth commodity and she refuses to be used again, just because of her magic. Her son has been contracted to work with the local boss of the magical world in her area, whilst her daughter is off travelling and supposedly safe. Both have inherited her mage magic, something she only recently found out about. She has an almost boyfriend in Nick, who is a svartalfar, who works his magic into metalwork. He has another complete world of existence on another domain, that she is about to find out quite a lot about!
She now has a small group of goblins loyal to her, after she managed to release the magical hold placed on them, that had kept them captive and doing another’s will for years. She is looking for ways to help more of their kind, but can’t do much herself until her magic recharges, but Jimmy might be able to do something for them. Unfortunately, she comes under attack by a deadly creature out in the car park of the school, right after a parent meeting with a mother who has stuck around to give her a piece of her mind! The mother and her son, as well as Ceri and her car, have to be saved by Nick and are transported through a portal to his world. She doesn’t ever want to be under the control of a man again and matters get close in Nick’s world, due to his important position there and the normal status of humans. She and Nick make up and yes, they do finally do the deed, after she realises she can trust him and she maybe loves him as well! Matters are quite as good once they return home, with assassins coming for her and Jimmy, and numerous close calls. It is hard to figure out who exactly is behind the attacks and when her kids are involved, everything goes out the window.
Ceri will do anything for her kids, to protect them and keep them safe. But it seems someone wants something in return, as all these beings seem to, and wording of such agreements must be very precise and cover all eventualities. Things are getting crazy and those who did wrong in the past are linked to those who want her to do something for them and it will not be an easy for straight forward road to travel upon. She is only just hanging onto her sanity at this point and is desperate to keep her kids safe, even though they are both college age now and mages in their own right, they are still her kids. Both Jimmy and Dora are lacking in mage training, only having picked up things from watching Ceri, who was also untaught. She will make a deal with the devil if it keeps her kids safe, but it is going to take more than that to solve her current conundrum and keep all the parties safe. Nick may not be happy with her decision, but at least she can tell him that she loves him, before the final curtain of this book falls!
Unsaid
At the end of the previous book, her daughter Dara, also a mage unbeknown to her until very recently, was kidnapped and to get her back, she has to make a deal with someone so dangerous they are held in their own prison dimension called Ha’al. Raphael is deemed too dangerous to be released and was put in this prison by his enemies, guarded by the Gatekeeper of the Mists, Diego, as well as his own sister Therese. He is an Enkimmu and most of his kind were killed off eons ago. His son Gaius is able to travel freely between different dimensions and get any supplies required. Raphael is so old, he gets bored with normal daily life and likes to torment people with his bite, kind of like a vampire. Her boyfriend Nick Damarian, a svartalkar, and Johann Schmidt, the ruler of central Ohio’s kin folk, came to the gate of the dimension with her, but would have been killed if they entered the mists guarding the dimension, without the proper protection. Unknown to her, Johann provided that to her with a kiss to her forehead, without explaining what he was doing. Raphael refuses to accept the ancient knife she brought in exchange for the girl called Una, driven mad by his bites already, a deal she would do anything to achieve, as it is the only way to get her daughter freed. What Raphael wants is Ceri! Her companionship, he would prefer in his bed as well, but she sets strict rules for what she will or won’t allow to happen and has to finally agree to spend a year and a day in his prison with him.
He ultimately wants her to free him from his prison, believing that her magic is powerful enough to do so! He has two young teenagers that seem to share his home with him, but who are clearly scared of him and don’t wish to be punished by him in any way again. They are Ilani and Albrecht, who were eavesdropping when she arrived and got caught out, but offer to show her round the safe parts of the realm to avoid any punishment. Ceri soon finds that there are all sorts of monsters in this dimension, but also a large number of humans, including children, brought in by the mists to keep Raphael amused. Ceri has to strengthen her own magical wards about herself, to keep safe in this realm and also to keep safe from Raphael’s even stronger magic, what with him being millennia old. She figures that she should find out as much about this place where she will be for the next year, as she can, so she isn’t caught out by any trick he might try. Raphael would do anything to get out of his prison and would wreak havoc upon the Earth or any other dimension he ended up in. Ceri decides to start a small school for the children of the group of humans she came across with the teens. A wolf shifter comes along the next time when their supplies and a building are sourced, but she is stuck in her wolf form. Ceri uses her magic to help Tatiana shift back into her human form, but it is a long and very painful process. She soon becomes like Ilani’s shadow. Ilani is obsessed with technology, especially phones, but nothing really works in this dimension as there is no electricity, only magic. Raphael seems to know everything they all do when they are out and about, so she knows he must have some way of watching them and soon figures out the large TV screen in the front room actually has many uses. She uses it herself to see her daughter Dara, son Jimmy who is working for Pryce, the leader of the lilim and as she found out recently, also Jimmy’s uncle! Once she practices with a few other people, she tries to see Nick and what he is doing, but his wards prevent her from doing so. He is millennia old, but nowhere near as old as Raphael, so his magic is pretty strong obviously!
Another day, her viewing of things near home allow her to see a huge fire near Johann’s home, or should she call him Lou or Lugh? It seems another Reckoning is on the horizon and the King and Queen of Godhome, Marduk and Tiamat, can only access the human dimension once the seers have picked up both keys, with her friend Lily beign one of the seers. Morgan wants to ascend to godhood and is looking for her final sacrifice to fuel her ascent and then challenge Marduk. The king brings plagues, whilst the queen brings natural disasters to the human world during these times and most of mankind and kin are wiped out during the Reckonings. Now one is coming and Ceri is nowhere near to her loved ones and wants to stop Morgan from destroying everything in her path, as she collects mages to do her bidding. Ceri has received warnings about not allowing Raphael to become free, from his sister, the Gatekeeper and others. But her only way back may need him and her magic to get there. A new bargain may have to be made to stop Morgan, but she will need to weigh heavily, the cost of doing so. Ceri has to be in Raphael’s presence when he requests it, with Ilani and Albrecht knowing to hide in their rooms, and she has seen him change moods as quickly as a chameleon can change their colour, making him a very dangerous person to get on the wrong side of. With almost god like magic and a propensity to be bored easily after such a long life, the line between good and evil no longer exists for a being such as him. Extreme reactions are all that seem to interest him and Ceri must be careful in what she says and does, if she wants to make it back to Nick and her children at all. She also has to ensure an ancient power does not destroy her world whilst she is stuck in this prison dimension! She needs to hold her tongue and leave some things unsaid around Raphael and hope the others she ends up questioning can give her enough of the answers she requires. A tricky conclusion to this part of her story, as multiple things need to happen at once and she has no guarantees that what she tries will actually work. A lot depends on her and those she want sot free may not be worth saving. She knows too little of this dimension and why people are brought there and not enough about Raphael and his reasons for wanting to be free. What his plans are, are still unclear, dangerously so!
According to the list of books in this series at the end of this book, a reckoning is coming and I can’t wait to see what happens next for them all. I received an ARC copy of this boxset from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the books above.
Unfazed
This book sees Ceri (Ceridwen) Gault finally revealed as a mage and now under the protection of the Yaksha family she helped, when her son Jimmy’s girlfriend got replaced by a clone. This clone, called Mary, can’t return to her family as she looks identical to Liz, the girl she was to replace, and so now lives with Ramki, Nimaya and their daughter Priya. On top of all this she found out both of her kids were also mages, but had been hiding their powers from her. Her son Jimmy is now under contract with Johann Schmidt, the leader of the whole area’s magical community, and she has been assured of his safety, whilst her daughter Brea has escaped to go travelling, hoping to avoid any danger. Now she is no longer hidden as a weak powered lilim and having to pay protection fees to the lilim faction, she and her son are protected under the agreement Schmidt forced in, which stopped other kin magical beings disguised as humans) from stealing mages and using them as slaves, if they were already under someone’s protection. She has students to continue teaching English and grammar to, a teen who uses his well-connected family to ask for an extension for his homework, and then the head teacher asking her to take over the drama department’s end of term play!
She gets a message to call Mr Pryce, the kin’s leader, which she will ignore if possible, but then also gets a message from Priya to visit their leaders regarding a problem that has arisen. The last urgent issue was them trying to connect with the internet, but as they are providing her protection, she will call by and see what the issue is this time. When she is nearly at their secluded spot in a clearing outside of town, she has to stop suddenly on the icy roads, when a figure appears in front of her car. It isn’t a person as such, but an Unbodied, a being who refused to accept they had died and were very dangerous. They would suck the energy out of any living thing or body to keep themselves going and preferred humans! Luckily she is well versed in calling up spells and wards under pressure and she manages to get a ward in place, just before his hand can touch her, but she crashes her car. She calls her almost boyfriend Nick, a svartalfar warrior and artificer who has lived a lot longer than she has but will never reveal his age, to provide her with backup to stop the unbodied being and help to fix her car that it drained the battery of.
After cleaning the land magic of its dark force, where the yaksha lived, she had expended a lot of her magic and was suffering headaches and nose bleeds if she tried to use too much, too soon. Hopefully they only need a small spell from her and then Nick could take her home. She soon finds herself under yet another attack from some beings called Dregs and it is clear to her that someone is ignoring the direct law Schmidt had put in place about mages under protection, and they are trying to grab her. Only the presence of Nick helped her out this time. To add to the worries, her son is under Schmidt’s influence and he wants her to help with a ghost hunting film crew that are visiting the area, after one to many ghostly and other supernatural sightings among the human population. The kin leader’s first choice would be to just kill the entire film crew and make them disappear, but that would only bring more to their doors. She needs to see if she can offer a different option and stop there being a slaughter in her town. The different factions of kin aren’t exactly happy and she only has a week to sort the issue out, but at least she has some friends on her side and Nick is a great help. When a small troop of Goblins turn up, Ceri and Jimmy end up in a perilous situation and only the assistance of a manifestation of her magic will help her to escape and put an end to the slavery of one faction to be used as pawns by a powerful leader intent on causing chaos and strife to all. All Ceri wants is for her children to be safe and the kin to not have free reign on the poor human inhabitants of this town. That’s not too much to ask for is it?
Unbowed
Due to the events of the last book, she has overused her magical powers and she can’t access any of her magic. Mages are a high worth commodity and she refuses to be used again, just because of her magic. Her son has been contracted to work with the local boss of the magical world in her area, whilst her daughter is off travelling and supposedly safe. Both have inherited her mage magic, something she only recently found out about. She has an almost boyfriend in Nick, who is a svartalfar, who works his magic into metalwork. He has another complete world of existence on another domain, that she is about to find out quite a lot about!
She now has a small group of goblins loyal to her, after she managed to release the magical hold placed on them, that had kept them captive and doing another’s will for years. She is looking for ways to help more of their kind, but can’t do much herself until her magic recharges, but Jimmy might be able to do something for them. Unfortunately, she comes under attack by a deadly creature out in the car park of the school, right after a parent meeting with a mother who has stuck around to give her a piece of her mind! The mother and her son, as well as Ceri and her car, have to be saved by Nick and are transported through a portal to his world. She doesn’t ever want to be under the control of a man again and matters get close in Nick’s world, due to his important position there and the normal status of humans. She and Nick make up and yes, they do finally do the deed, after she realises she can trust him and she maybe loves him as well! Matters are quite as good once they return home, with assassins coming for her and Jimmy, and numerous close calls. It is hard to figure out who exactly is behind the attacks and when her kids are involved, everything goes out the window.
Ceri will do anything for her kids, to protect them and keep them safe. But it seems someone wants something in return, as all these beings seem to, and wording of such agreements must be very precise and cover all eventualities. Things are getting crazy and those who did wrong in the past are linked to those who want her to do something for them and it will not be an easy for straight forward road to travel upon. She is only just hanging onto her sanity at this point and is desperate to keep her kids safe, even though they are both college age now and mages in their own right, they are still her kids. Both Jimmy and Dora are lacking in mage training, only having picked up things from watching Ceri, who was also untaught. She will make a deal with the devil if it keeps her kids safe, but it is going to take more than that to solve her current conundrum and keep all the parties safe. Nick may not be happy with her decision, but at least she can tell him that she loves him, before the final curtain of this book falls!
Unsaid
At the end of the previous book, her daughter Dara, also a mage unbeknown to her until very recently, was kidnapped and to get her back, she has to make a deal with someone so dangerous they are held in their own prison dimension called Ha’al. Raphael is deemed too dangerous to be released and was put in this prison by his enemies, guarded by the Gatekeeper of the Mists, Diego, as well as his own sister Therese. He is an Enkimmu and most of his kind were killed off eons ago. His son Gaius is able to travel freely between different dimensions and get any supplies required. Raphael is so old, he gets bored with normal daily life and likes to torment people with his bite, kind of like a vampire. Her boyfriend Nick Damarian, a svartalkar, and Johann Schmidt, the ruler of central Ohio’s kin folk, came to the gate of the dimension with her, but would have been killed if they entered the mists guarding the dimension, without the proper protection. Unknown to her, Johann provided that to her with a kiss to her forehead, without explaining what he was doing. Raphael refuses to accept the ancient knife she brought in exchange for the girl called Una, driven mad by his bites already, a deal she would do anything to achieve, as it is the only way to get her daughter freed. What Raphael wants is Ceri! Her companionship, he would prefer in his bed as well, but she sets strict rules for what she will or won’t allow to happen and has to finally agree to spend a year and a day in his prison with him.
He ultimately wants her to free him from his prison, believing that her magic is powerful enough to do so! He has two young teenagers that seem to share his home with him, but who are clearly scared of him and don’t wish to be punished by him in any way again. They are Ilani and Albrecht, who were eavesdropping when she arrived and got caught out, but offer to show her round the safe parts of the realm to avoid any punishment. Ceri soon finds that there are all sorts of monsters in this dimension, but also a large number of humans, including children, brought in by the mists to keep Raphael amused. Ceri has to strengthen her own magical wards about herself, to keep safe in this realm and also to keep safe from Raphael’s even stronger magic, what with him being millennia old. She figures that she should find out as much about this place where she will be for the next year, as she can, so she isn’t caught out by any trick he might try. Raphael would do anything to get out of his prison and would wreak havoc upon the Earth or any other dimension he ended up in. Ceri decides to start a small school for the children of the group of humans she came across with the teens. A wolf shifter comes along the next time when their supplies and a building are sourced, but she is stuck in her wolf form. Ceri uses her magic to help Tatiana shift back into her human form, but it is a long and very painful process. She soon becomes like Ilani’s shadow. Ilani is obsessed with technology, especially phones, but nothing really works in this dimension as there is no electricity, only magic. Raphael seems to know everything they all do when they are out and about, so she knows he must have some way of watching them and soon figures out the large TV screen in the front room actually has many uses. She uses it herself to see her daughter Dara, son Jimmy who is working for Pryce, the leader of the lilim and as she found out recently, also Jimmy’s uncle! Once she practices with a few other people, she tries to see Nick and what he is doing, but his wards prevent her from doing so. He is millennia old, but nowhere near as old as Raphael, so his magic is pretty strong obviously!
Another day, her viewing of things near home allow her to see a huge fire near Johann’s home, or should she call him Lou or Lugh? It seems another Reckoning is on the horizon and the King and Queen of Godhome, Marduk and Tiamat, can only access the human dimension once the seers have picked up both keys, with her friend Lily beign one of the seers. Morgan wants to ascend to godhood and is looking for her final sacrifice to fuel her ascent and then challenge Marduk. The king brings plagues, whilst the queen brings natural disasters to the human world during these times and most of mankind and kin are wiped out during the Reckonings. Now one is coming and Ceri is nowhere near to her loved ones and wants to stop Morgan from destroying everything in her path, as she collects mages to do her bidding. Ceri has received warnings about not allowing Raphael to become free, from his sister, the Gatekeeper and others. But her only way back may need him and her magic to get there. A new bargain may have to be made to stop Morgan, but she will need to weigh heavily, the cost of doing so. Ceri has to be in Raphael’s presence when he requests it, with Ilani and Albrecht knowing to hide in their rooms, and she has seen him change moods as quickly as a chameleon can change their colour, making him a very dangerous person to get on the wrong side of. With almost god like magic and a propensity to be bored easily after such a long life, the line between good and evil no longer exists for a being such as him. Extreme reactions are all that seem to interest him and Ceri must be careful in what she says and does, if she wants to make it back to Nick and her children at all. She also has to ensure an ancient power does not destroy her world whilst she is stuck in this prison dimension! She needs to hold her tongue and leave some things unsaid around Raphael and hope the others she ends up questioning can give her enough of the answers she requires. A tricky conclusion to this part of her story, as multiple things need to happen at once and she has no guarantees that what she tries will actually work. A lot depends on her and those she want sot free may not be worth saving. She knows too little of this dimension and why people are brought there and not enough about Raphael and his reasons for wanting to be free. What his plans are, are still unclear, dangerously so!
According to the list of books in this series at the end of this book, a reckoning is coming and I can’t wait to see what happens next for them all. I received an ARC copy of this boxset from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the books above.