A review by dawn_marie
Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai

2.0

Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai was a bit of a mixed bag. The story follows Elle, the middle child and only daughter in a family descendant from the Chinese god of medicine, and Luc, the half-elven French “fixer” of the “agency”. Elle works as a magical calligrapher at one of the agency’s glyph shops, where her best customer just happens to be her biggest crush, Luc. Unbeknownst to Luc, Elle has been preparing his glyphs with a little extra “something” which saves his life when a mission goes badly wrong. Luc visits the shop, bearing a gift for Elle, and a request that she create powerful magic for his next mission. It doesn’t take much for Elle to say “yes” and, of course, things go pear-shaped

Elle and Luc as the main characters were fine, even if they weren’t especially well developed. The author dropped several hints about their past that were never fully explored, that felt like a missed opportunity to show some character growth. The side characters were little more than caricatures or plot devices.

For a book that is being marketed as a paranormal romance, there was plenty of paranormal and very little romance.

Spoiler

The story starts with Elle and Luc as friends with both secretly crushing on the other, going from flirting to sex rather quickly. There was no build-up or development of the relationship, so I wasn’t particularly invested in whether they stayed together or not.

While I didn’t think the romance aspect was especially well executed, I did appreciate that the author had Elle and Luc talk about their feelings, fears, and relationship thus avoiding the “miscommunication” trope.

There are magic and various paranormal beings inhabiting Ms. Tsai’s world, and what little magic we were shown was interesting. It was nice to see the more mundane aspects of a magical world (i.e., train/portal conductors, ticket takers, secretaries). I like a magic system that uses language as its basis, and I appreciate the nods to Chinese culture. However, the rest of the world building was nebulous at best. While it isn’t clearly stated, I believe that humans are unaware of magic and paranormal beings (hence the need for glamours when “working with the humans”). If that is the case, how does the agency explain things like harpy or redcap attacks? Or the fact that some individuals (like half elven agents or medicine god descendants) don’t appear to age? Also, what is the agency and what does it do?

The pacing was odd, with the middle section feeling like it should be the ending and the last act being especially draggy. A lot of the potential conflicts (i.e., Luc hunting Elle’s brother, Elle hiding from her family, Elle and Luc both keeping secrets) were never fully realized and were resolved rather quickly with little consequences. However, I did appreciate Ms. Tsai taking the time to explore the aftermath of

Spoiler

Elle losing her magical ability, and her very realistic depression and feelings of hopelessness and loss.

Too often authors will included a traumatic event in the plot, but take little time to explore its impact on characters.

Bitter Medicine had an interesting premise and some unique elements. The book was fine, it wasn’t great, nor was it awful. Unfortunately pacing and plot resolution issues prevented this from being an amazing book.