A review by niffler_for_words
The Temptation of Magic by Megan Scott

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

“Mum talked about divino artista, the divine artist, for years. Humans think it has a religious meaning: God –the Divine Artist that created the world. But for us, for supernaturals, it explains why some artists have an intimate relationship with the supernatural world.”

On paper, The Temptation of Magic ticked many boxes for me. In reality… not only these expectations were (highly) met, but that story triggered a new obsession. That book is almost everything I want to read and hit me as hard as Divine Rivals did last year, though completely differently. The story is so intricate, complex, and multi-layered that revealing it here would cause spoilers, so I’ll just write about how the book made me feel, and I’m sorry because I know it will be messy and I won’t give it justice. For the exact same reason, I won’t elaborate much about the romance part, though I truly adored how the characters interacted. 

The world building is not only original but mind-blowing, and enhanced by the deeply immersive writing. I love dark-academia set ups, I feel a deep connection with UK and with “Celtic Culture”. That book made me travel just there. But it also made me dive into some pieces of art in an experience I would never have imagined (honestly, read this book instead of going into one of these “immersive exhibitions”, your experience will be so much better!). The role and “meaning” of arts (mostly painting but not only) in the story is absolutely extraordinary and I can’t tell how emotional it made me to see one of my favourite 19th century paintings among the ones the author chose as support for her novel. I loved how M. Scott used a lot of folkloreS, even if she focused a bit more on the Vampires (in such an original way!) and Celtic Mythology (which is one of my fav’), allowing –among others– the themes of memory, manipulation and propaganda to weave between each other.

The characters are intense, and just like the rest, complex in the best of ways. I absolutely adored how fragile Nicole and Kylan are, despite their statute of “top hunters''. I know the main metaphor is the passage to adulthood and how Nicole accepts and welcomes the change. However, as an autistic person, for whom diagnostic came late in life, this echoes also differently. How difficult is it to mask but also feels indispensable to feel safe. How the world can be hard to deal with (the way transformation into Empyreal –and its aftermath– is written was such a mirror of how meltdown, shutdown and burnout can impact body and mind). How unmasking can be both liberating and terrifying. (The way Nicole two facets can represent both strength and weakness is another point (I call my autism the alliage of a unicorn and a dragon)

I know it wasn’t the main message –and that the unmasking metaphor can be used for many other situations– but I felt seen anyway. And it’s not so frequent. 

All that makes The Temptation of Magic a breath-taking coming of age story, a true page turner, in which the relationship between the main characters has a great tension (in all the possible ways) but is also weaved with a lot of mystery, action, twists, turns and myths,and wrapped into a deeply immersive writing. I wish I could write more about them both, and all the wonderful side characters, there is so much to say. I loved them deeply, but I don’t want to spoil.   

That book is a debut novel, but Megan Scott definitely became one of my auto-read with this one, especially knowing that it is the first book of a trilogy. I can’t wait to know what will happen next because I found one of my unicorns here!

See you again in one year and one day!

Thank you NetGalley, Megan Scott and HarperCollins/Magpie for this ARC. My opinions are my own.