Your Urban Fantasy Book Collection: Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong

Dime Store Magic by Kelley ArmstrongAs promised I’m writing short reviews or “quickies” of the contemporary and urban fantasy books that I believe every urban fantasy reader should have in their collection. My goal is to publish one of these every few days. I have quite a few books to cover so this will keep me busy for a while.

First up is Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong. Kelley Armstrong writes the Women of the Otherworld series that I love so much. One series deals with witches, the second series focuses on werewolves. This review takes a look at the first book from the series about witches.

Key Points

The heroine, Paige Winterbourne, is a witch who inherits the title of Leader of the American Coven of Witches when her mother dies. Paige is looking for hidden grimoires, books filled with powerful spells that she hopes will help witches regain their place in the supernatural world. By only practicing white magic, witches have become weaker than sorcerers, their male counterparts. Paige wants the witches to regain their power and use it not for profit, like the cabals, but for the purpose of doing good.

Paige also inherits the responsibility of looking after Savannah Levine, a rebellious 13-year-old who’s mother (also dead) practiced black magic, something taboo to the witches in the coven.

Savannah, like her mother, is also interested in black magic and is an extremely powerful, but untrained, witch. This makes her attractive to the leader of a cabal, a sorcerer-owned high-powered corporation that uses witches and clairvoyants against their competition. Savannah’s long lost father wants to use her for this purpose and plans to fight Paige for custody.

Paige meets a lawyer who happens to be heir to the most powerful cabal in the world. Although he’s a sorcerer he’s not interested in his father’s cabal business. When Paige gets into trouble he comes to the rescue. Although witches and sorcerers have hated one another for centuries, Paige forms a friendship with the lawyer.

There’s lots of action in this book; most of it is linked to Paige’s attempts to keep Savannah in check (you try dealing with a powerful untrained 13 year old witch), her efforts to fight off Savannah’s deadbeat dad for custody, and her attempts to keep both of them safe from a female half-demon that seems to be holding a grudge against Paige. After reading this book, the first in the Paige Winterbourne urban fantasy series, I was hooked.

If you don’t have this book you should get it now while it’s on sale.

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8 Comments »

Comment by UFR
2008-03-17 10:56:51

Armstrong’s Otherworld books are one of the best series in the urban fantasy genre. I’m looking forward to Personal Demon coming out next week. Elena is my favorite character from the books. I hope she and Clay make appearances in future Otherworld books. :)

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Comment by FantasyGirl
2008-03-17 11:10:41

Agreed! I’m also interested in reading more about the budding relationship between Jeremy and Jamie Vegas.

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Comment by Matt
2008-03-17 12:45:18

Did you catch my interview with Kelley:

http://www.flamesrising.com/interview-with-author-kelley-armstrong

We’ve got a couple of reviews of her books in the works for the site, especially No Humans Allowed coming up next month.

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Comment by FantasyGirl
2008-03-17 13:55:00

Matt: Hey, thanks for the info. I hadn’t read it. I’ll definitely check it out!

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Pingback by Fantasy Book Quickie: Industrial Magic by Kelley Armstrong | bestfantasystories.com
2008-03-19 08:14:04

[...] first book in the series, Dime Store Magic, was recently reviewed. Let’s take a look at the second book in the Paige Winterbourne urban [...]

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Pingback by Fantasy Book Quickie: Haunted by Kelley Armstrong | bestfantasystories.com
2008-03-22 09:17:01

[...] recently reviewed the first book "Dime Store Magic" and the second book "Industrial Magic" in the Paige Winterbourne urban fantasy [...]

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Comment by Omar
2008-04-11 01:05:34

You are the brick! Reading stuff like this written in the way like this is a great pleasure for me.

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Comment by FantasyGirl
2008-04-11 18:46:05

Omar: glad you enjoy the site! I write reviews each week; subscribe to my RSS feed to get the latest posts!

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