A Hidden Magic by Angela Benedetti

[reviews_and_ramblings]

I was really interested in reading this novel, Angela Benedetti is one of my oldest online friends and many time we shared our preferences in old fashioned romances, and often we agreed on them. So yes, I knew even before reading it, that the romance part of this story would have been good, and it was. What probably I was also expecting is for the book to be clever. I wasn’t probably expecting for it to be funny.

Let be sincere, when speaking of alien invasion, even if the “aliens” are not from a far away galaxy, but from the fey world, well, funny is not the exact term to describe a story. Especially if the fey creatures, trolls, fairies, incubi and a lot more of other mythical creatures, feed on humans killing them.

But this group of fighting hero is not exactly your special squad: Aubrey, apparently the boss since he is the strongest and oldest, looks like a barely legal pretty boy; his boyfriend Cal is a restaurant owner; Manny is a bookstore owner and former nurse and Paul, the baddest of the all, is a paranormal romance writer! Not exactly the men you are expecting to save the world, right? But they are doing their job fairly, and are not against the idea to include someone else in their group.

I didn’t understand if Manny was inviting Rory to lunch with them since he understood he was a possible candidate or if he was only gentle; in any case, Rory is a “blaze”, basically an huge reserve of magical power fey people want for themselves. All his life Rory believed to be psychopathic since he was seeing “things”, things other people were not able to see; he spent most of his life taking drugs to dull down his sight and now, suddenly, he is not alone in seeing those things. Problem is that now the things are after him and the only shelter against them is Paul.

Paul, the paranormal romance writer, is also a big man with too much piercing and with a passion for the hard rock style. All the opposite of Rory, who, for all his life, has tried to avoid stimulation, like strong colour, strong emotions and strong passions… Near Paul he is having an over flooding of them, and he is not able to stop it. Even if outside there are bad things waiting and hunting for Rory, inside Rory’s house, Paul and him are playing “boyfriends”, sharing a coach, a passion for sci-fic movies and pizzas; the sex is something both of them want, but like two good teenagers at their first experience with passion, they are willing to wait and know each other better.

This is another aspect of the book I liked; aside from a scene almost at the beginning of the book, when an incubus attacked Rory, sex is always there, simmering underneath, but not the main dish; sex here is more like a dessert you need to wait to fully favour it.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2648

Amazon Kindle: A Hidden Magic (Sentinel Series)

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Comments

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

You are more than welcome Angela, and I'm really curious to see what you will do with the next books in the series.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

I've started the next novel in the series, where we'll find out more about Rory's background and his family. There'll be at least a couple of short stories before that, though. The first is out already, "Unfinished Business," which is about Cal and Aubrey wrapping up that lesson about the ass's ears that got interrupted in Hidden Magic, which Cal had hoped Aubrey would forget about, but no such luck. :) If you'd like a copy of that one, I can get it for you. I just submitted the next one, also a Cal and Aubrey story, called "Reach out and Touch," for Torquere's Halloween story blitz.

Angie

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Since I'm a bookwhore, my first instinct was, "sure, send it!" (eager face), but I have to be sincere, I'm way behind my reading schedule and made a promise to myself to read only novella and novel for a bit, so, I can't assure you that I will read it soon :-(

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

No prob, whenever you get to it. It's just a fun little piece to tie up a loose end; if it sits a while, it won't stop you from understanding what's going on later in the novels. :)

Angie

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Then thank you Angela. You have my email address, right?

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

Yep. Sent. :)

Angie