Book Review: City of Dark Magic

I can’t decide if this book is more fun or frustrating.

City of Dark Magic (by “Magnus Flyte,” a pseudonym for Meg Howrey and Christina Lynch) attempts to be a genre-busting whirlwind of adventure and sensuous intrigue. Sensuous is probably the best word to describe it—this is a story revolving around different ideas of sensory perception. Sarah Weston is a Ph.D. student in Boston, studying under the eccentrically brilliant musicologist Dr. Sherbatsky. Upon his mysterious death, Sarah is invited to fill his spot studying Beethoven manuscripts at a castle in Prague. Sarah, you see, has a gifted ear for sound, and loves Beethoven. Beethoven famously had problems with intermittent deafness. Sarah’s favorite pupil, Pols, is blind, but her other senses are especially heightened. Prince Max, owner of the castle, experiments with a drug that increases the brain’s ability to sense the energy of “charged moments” from the past, and so is able to travel in time without actually travelling in time (it’s scientific, you see). Sarah and Max have a more-than-healthy libido. There’s mystery, crime, fantasy, science fiction, erotica… the publisher describes it as a “rom-com paranormal suspense novel.” That’s the book’s greatest strength and greatest weakness.