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ineffablebob's review
3.0
The Garden of Abracadabra is an urban fantasy, set in the modern day but with a few magical additions.
The book (or books...it's an omnibus of three volumes, but really one story) follows a young woman named Abby as she sets out on her own exploring her own magical abilities. She enrolls in magic school, gets a job at a magical apartment building, stumbles across magical murders, juggles old flames and new love...all the sorts of things you'd expect.
This story has strong Harry Potter vibes...there's a magic school, Abby grew up non-magical but turns out to be very powerful, some shadowy bad guys are after her...but written from a more adult perspective. There's demons and vampires and witches and magical animals and supernatural law enforcement. Definitely true to the genre.
There are a lot of open threads that don't get resolved here. Who are those shadowy assassins that are after Abby, and how will she take them down? Will the curse on the local IT guy be lifted? Are Abby and the scarred FBI agent she falls for get together? This reads like a story that's meant to be continued in future books, but poking around the author's website didn't show any further work.
I enjoyed The Garden of Abracadabra, but I have to admit that the lack of resolution to some of those open questions annoyed me. It's a fine read, but for me at least, an unsatisfying one.
The book (or books...it's an omnibus of three volumes, but really one story) follows a young woman named Abby as she sets out on her own exploring her own magical abilities. She enrolls in magic school, gets a job at a magical apartment building, stumbles across magical murders, juggles old flames and new love...all the sorts of things you'd expect.
This story has strong Harry Potter vibes...there's a magic school, Abby grew up non-magical but turns out to be very powerful, some shadowy bad guys are after her...but written from a more adult perspective. There's demons and vampires and witches and magical animals and supernatural law enforcement. Definitely true to the genre.
There are a lot of open threads that don't get resolved here. Who are those shadowy assassins that are after Abby, and how will she take them down? Will the curse on the local IT guy be lifted? Are Abby and the scarred FBI agent she falls for get together? This reads like a story that's meant to be continued in future books, but poking around the author's website didn't show any further work.
I enjoyed The Garden of Abracadabra, but I have to admit that the lack of resolution to some of those open questions annoyed me. It's a fine read, but for me at least, an unsatisfying one.
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