Salt Magic, Skin Magic

Salt Magic, Skin Magic
Lee Welch, 2018

Premise: Lord Thornby can't leave his father's estate. It's not that he doesn't want to, but for some reason, he just can't. When John Blake arrives at the house claiming to be a magician, Thornby laughs it off at first. But only together can they rescue Thornby from madness or worse.

There was a point last winter when all I wanted to do was lie on the couch, nibble on crackers, and read fluffy romance. (Dear first trimester, I'm glad you're done.)

Of course, I have a particular definition of "fluffy", as the discussion in this review https://bluefairysbookshelf.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-gentleman-never-keeps-score.html explains. I need a certain amount of adventure and danger to make any romance worth my time.

So once I'd re-read the Magpie Lord series https://bluefairysbookshelf.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-magpie-lord-charm-of-magpies-book-1.html from start to end (seriously I should circle back and do a post about the fact that I love those books more and more the more I read them), I went looking for recommendations for other books that would scratch a similar itch.

I found this. I bought it. I read it. I went to check whether the author had released anything else in a similar vein. Then I went back to the beginning and read it again.

In short, I liked it.

I loved the world and the way the magic worked; I loved the lush descriptions; I loved the characters and their relationship. The romantic build keeps pace and interweaves with the supernatural shenanigans without either storyline feeling tagged on or shortchanged.

The magic surrounding Thornby and the estate has a good amount of darkness and menace to it, balanced with Blake's talent for the magic of pragmatic concrete things: iron and salt and such.

The central relationship is sweet and heartwarming, and super hot at the same time.

Great book all around, and an author worth keeping tabs on.

5 Stars - An Awesome Book