Twisted Magic by Barbara J. Webb

Publication Date: July 30th, 2024

Tags: MM, Fantasy, Grief, War, Magic

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His magic could heal anything, except a broken heart.

Fleeing losses he can’t bear to face and a war he doesn’t want to remember, Korin has come to Triome, the greatest city in the world, for a fresh start. But Triome holds its own dark secrets, and Korin may not have left all his enemies behind.

A disease stalks the city, a disease made of magic that only a wizard like Korin can cure. But he can’t fight it alone, and his new allies may not be as friendly as they seem. Especially handsome Ádan, who awakens feelings and memories that Korin would rather have left behind, and whose smiling face may be hiding the darkest secret of all.

The writing is a bit choppy and jarring at times, but not to the point of being unreadable. This author also loves their em dashes, and as a huge em dash user myself—I’m in full support lol. There’s a lot of telling rather than showing, and, as others have pointed out, some poor or weird word choices.

However, at no point was this enough to make me stop reading. I think this book would have greatly benefited by another read through from an editor/beta reader. However, it doesn’t come out until July 30th, so I’m thinking they might do some last-minute edits.

I’m not the biggest fan of ‘insta love’ unless it makes sense to the plot, but there is a bit of it in this book. Well, maybe not insta love, but definitely some insta attraction. While I enjoyed the characters Korin and Adan, I wasn’t necessarily in love with them. However, I did like their dynamic—think grumpy wizard x sunshine highborn.

My absolute favorite thing about this book, and what made it a good read, was the world-building. Yes, the world-building is very very simple, yet it is still super intriguing.This is incredibly hard to do. Maybe it’s because I usually play support when I play video games, but I really loved the healing magic and how she used salt—genius. Additionally, how the author explained minor things such as hauntings and curses in the context of magic really added to this cool world. There was also a delightful little twist towards the end that kept it interesting.

In my opinion, this was a cozy read. While the subject matter is a bit on the darker side, I wasn’t rushing to finish it, nor was I stopping. It was the perfect book for me to read bit by bit before bed over the past week.

This isn’t a long book, and it’s quite rough around the edges, but all in all, if you enjoy MM fantasy romance with a bit of spice, I would highly recommend it.