Customer Reviews

Magic Man (Signet Eclipse)

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Reviewed by Regan Loyd

Because of his propensity for causing earthquakes and other natural calamities with powers he denies exist, Aidan Dougal isolates himself, fearing he is a danger to others. After a greedy neighbor with a preferential inheritance to his sues for ownership of his property, Aidan must find a way to save his tenants and estate from a perilous plan to destroy the land mining for coal.

After a fire killed her mother--but not her mother's voice in her head--Mora Abbott was adopted as a child by a vicar and his wife and trained in patience, prudence, and practicality. When both her adopted parents die, Mora must leave the vicarage to research the recently revealed names on the frontispiece of her only remaining family heirloom, a spellbook, in hopes of finding a new home.

When Mora starts receiving warnings of imminent danger to unidentified people, she must follow mysterious instructions on paper and in her head in order to save them. When his itchy nose leads him to Mora, Aidan gets drawn into her quest while coming to terms with a nature he denies and a family he dares not claim lest he destroy them.

Magic Man presents two portraits of self-acceptance in the face of sacrifices just to belong. This intelligent finale to the six book series is a mystery of genealogy and family journals, righting the wrongs of forefathers, and the power men and women create together. Rice cleverly weaves together a complicated plot into a fast-paced, pleasant paranormal (lite) mystery. Although Rice saved the best for last, I am sorry to see the "Magic" series end because there are other characters I'd like to read about. I can only hope those characters eventually receive an executive pardon and come out to play at a later date.

Finally! Aidan's story! I've been waiting for this for a while.

Aidan has been the mysterious relative of the Malcolms--or is it the Iveses--throughout this historical romance series about two families with magical gifts. He has a habit of coming to the characters' aid and then disappearing, always disparaging those magical gifts and denying any suggestion that he might have gifts of his own.

And that's how we find him at the beginning of Magic Man--minding his own business, until he's summoned to the aid of the Malcolms, and the itch on his nose leads him straight to their visitor, Mora, who's being attacked by brigands.

Mora, for her part, would love to have magical gifts, but doesn't believe she does. Still, when her adoptive parents dies and she'll have to leave her home, she sees no harm in trying A Spelle for Trubble in the Journal of Lessons her mother left her.

The answer to her troubles comes in the form of an invitation to stay at the Malcolms' country estate, and the man who saves her from attack, and who seems to be able to make the earth move--literally.

Aidan is also on the verge of losing his home to a greedy aunt who insists his illegitimacy makes him ineligible to inherit. Making matters worse, she intends to expand her coal mine, destroying the homes of his tenants.

As he searches for some other heir or some way to protect his land and people, it becomes more and more difficult to deny his heritage and his magical gifts, particularly with Mora around, who's developing gifts of her own, and also discovering her own heritage.

While I enjoyed the magic/paranormal aspects of the story, what made it exceptional for me was the characters and their romance. Both Aidan and Mora are complex characters, and both are dealing with similar issues, though from different angles. They're both dealing with a loss of their homes, a lack of family, and the possibility of magic talents. And just as their magic talents complement each other, so do their family and home issues, making Magic Man satisfying both emotionally--because I cared about the characters, and intellectually--because the story fit together so completely.

Unfortunately, Magic Man is the last of the series. I'm going to miss the Malcolms and the Iveses, but kudos to Ms. Rice for not drawing a series out until it gets dull. I'm going to have to check out her other books--in my experience, a talent like this for characterization and satisfying romance plots carries over to other sub-genres.

The only problem with Patricia Rice's "Magic" series is that she can't write them fast enough. I was eagerly awaiting Aidan's story from the time he was first introduced and I was not disappointed with his story. I have all six in the series and have read all of them at least twice.

I don't usually go for serial books, but this series was great. Romantic and funny with just enough wooooOOOOoooo in it to make it a page turner.

The series follows a family of women, each with "special" abilities. Throughout those books, one mysterious character kept popping in and out. I was dying to find out his connection to both families involved.

This is the book that follows his story. You won't be disappointed.

One of the great things about this series is that you don't have to read the other books to understand this one. But it helps.

Patricia Rice writes them like I like them. Romantic and funny. Good enjoyable fun read.

In 1757 Scotland, Aidan Dougal, the illegitimate son of a deceased Earl, is renowned for his temper though of late he seems somewhat mellow because of the friendships offered to him by his-brothers and their fey spouses. However, his detestable enemy Lady Gabriel makes a grab for land that Aidan claims is his; the avaricious aristocrat apparently has proof to support her assertion.

With the deaths of her adopted parents Mora Abbott feels the time is right to learn of her heritage. She offers to assist Aidan find evidence that the land belongs to him because she feels searching his ancestral records might help her better understand her ancestry, her magical skills and the voices inside her head that guide her to ancient scrolls. As they fall in love she fears he will dump her once he learns the truth about her and the scrolls.

The sixth "Magic" tale is a wonderful paranormal historical romance. Aidan and Mora are a charming pair, who, as they team up, attraction turns magically into love. The action-packed story line grips the audience as soon as the lead pair begins their sleuthing quest and never slows down until the final thread is magically resolved. Patricia Rice is clearly the Magic Woman with this superb tale and magnificent series.

Harriet Klausner

spins a great tale. This book held my interest until the end and wrapped up nicely. There is intrigue, continuing characters and lots of humor, and magic, magic, magic! I really have to go back and read the other books in this series. I would recommend this one.

"Magic Man" is the sixth in the series of books set in the early 1800s following two families, the Ives and the Malcolms, who have and use magic. This book features Aidan Dougal, a giant of a man who is some kind of relation to the Ives family (although he keeps the actual relationship a secret for most of the book) and Mora Abbott, an orphan spinster who is a friend of one of the Malcolm women. This book gives a heavy emphasis on the Malcolm women (the Malcolm line has magical abilities descended through the women) and the way in which most of them ended up married to an Ives man. In fact it took me almost half the book before I understood the relationships between the women and their men, their magical abilities and Aidan's relationship to the Ives men. At the very end of the book there is a family tree - it would have helped if this were at the beginning and it might not have been quite as confusing for a reader new to the series.

The basic plot of the story is that Aidan Dougal has a strange magical ability that he denies to himself - that he affects his surroundings physically when he feels extreme emotions. He seems to often be the centre of earthquakes and tremors, strong winds and other 'natural' events. His mother tried to teach him to handle this power but he denies that it exists, although the reader is aware that he is at least partially convinced that he has some special power. For this reason he tends to keep away from those he loves in case he damages them through his emotions. He also knows that when his nose itches there is something about to happen.

Mora was fostered to a vicar and his wife when her mother died and it's when they die, when Mora is 29, that she realises she is alone in the world. One of the Malcolm women takes her with her on a family visit to relatives in Scotland and it is there that Mora meets Aidan, the giant, when he rescues her from some bandits. These two are thrown together a number of times and although Aidan is wary of the Malcolm women and particularly chary about magic he finds Mora's matter-of-fact nature and sensible behaviour attractive. Of course he soon discovers that she, too, has some magical abilities and that she wants him to reconcile himself to his own.

This book has a heavy emphasis on ancestry and skills and talents being passed down to descendants. A large part of the book seems to be about finding family history, working out who is related to whom, whether Aidan and Mora have Malcolm blood in them etc. Unfortunately their research soon proves to be very damaging to two families which could be destroyed by what they find. Aidan's destructive nature is not only in the natural world but also with regard to families, and yet Mora believes her role is to balance and calm him. How will Aidan deal with losing his home unless he usurps his half-brother's important title? How can Mora claim her father without causing pain to her two half-sisters? As Aidan runs away from all close relationships for fear of damaging the woman, how can he and Mora find happiness?

Those who have read the previous five books in this series might find this more enjoyable than someone who has come first to this one. Although with some interesting characters and a slightly different take on magical abilities, I found it rather an unsatisfying read. The overemphasis on the Malcolm family tree, the barely explained strange magical talents of the women, the scanty backstory leaving me unable to distinguish clearly between characters made it sometimes hard going to read. The love story was a minor part of the tale compared to the search for family history but that part was written well. I was also very disappointed in the accuracy of the writing for a story set in Scotland in the 1800s. Although some of the information, about the ways in which marriages could be solemnised, was interesting, there were far too many modern Americanisms included in this story. Men wear "vests" instead of "waistcoats", babies have "diapers" rather than "nappies", people say "quit" instead of "stop" etc. Even the emphasis on women retaining their maiden names as a middle name in marriage is very unusual in Britain and didn't feel right for this time and place (although it was necessary for the Malcolm obsession in the plot).

Apart from those reservations the book was fairly well written with reasonable pacing (apart from the family history sections), some action and varied characters. However this instalment in the series wasn't enough to inspire me to read any of the others and in some ways it was a missed opportunity - the story of Mora and Aidan would have worked as well with less emphasis on the other Malcolm women and more focus on our main characters as they grow and learn about each other. The supernatural element, for me, added little to the story and in fact sometimes detracted from the human interest of the hero and heroine, plus a rather over-neat tie-up at the end felt a little too convenient.

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