Review - Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

Published 4th June 2019 by Tor Books

Star Rating - ****

Goodreads Challenge - 40/50

I was kindly gifted a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis (from Goodreads)

Ivy Gamble has never wanted to be magic. She is perfectly happy with her life—she has an almost-sustainable career as a private investigator, and an empty apartment, and a slight drinking problem. It's a great life and she doesn't wish she was like her estranged sister, the magically gifted professor Tabitha.

But when Ivy is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a faculty member at Tabitha’s private academy, the stalwart detective starts to lose herself in the case, the life she could have had, and the answer to the mystery that seems just out of her reach.

My Thoughts

I was kind enough to be gifted a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for review. I'd seen a lot of hype for this one from the publisher and other readers however, several of these readers seemed a little bit disappointed but luckily that wasn't me. I actually really enjoyed this book. 

This is the first book I've read by Sarah Gailey, I know her other books are a series of novellas and this is a full length novel which I generally prefer however, I do want to check out her other series now. This book is about a magical school (hello HP vibes) and someone has died in strange circumstances within this school. The Headmaster calls in a PI, who is non-magical, to investigate this and it just so happens her estranged magical sister teaches at this school. Now as I just mentioned the synopsis of this book is very Harry Potter esque and I have seen this described as an adult version of HP however, please don't take this as it sounds. This book is very different from HP but, if you enjoy the magical school trope you will like this one. 

I quite enjoyed Sarah Gailey's writing style. It wasn't overly flowery or descriptive and I thought that fitted well with the story. It meant it was fast paced and easy to read and I flew through this book in a very short space of time. There was lots of misdirection and at times I thought I had figured out the twist but that turned out not to be the case. I wasn't able to predict the ending which made the mystery much more interesting. Although I quite liked that the writing wasn't overly descriptive, the one thing I will say is that I would of liked a little bit more exploration of the magic in this book. 

I enjoyed the characters too. Ivy was kind of your typical character for this type of story. She was a bit of an introvert, drank quite a lot, that sort of thing but I liked her determination to solve the case, even when it got a little bit too close to home. I enjoyed reading about the relationship between Ivy and her sister Tabitha. They're actually estranged at the start of this book and over the course of this story they're relationship starts to unfold and we find out about their problems with each other. This was interesting to see. 

Overall I really enjoyed this story. I liked the characters and the mystery aspect I just would of liked a little bit more development of the magic. Since reading this I have added Sarah Gailey's other series to my wishlist and I'm keen to check out more from her. 

Overall Rating