Review City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte
Once a city of enormous wealth and culture, Prague was home to emperors, alchemists, astronomers, and, as it’s whispered, hell portals. When music student Sarah Weston lands a summer job at Prague Castle cataloging Beethoven’s manuscripts, she has no idea how dangerous her life is about to become. Prague is a threshold, Sarah is warned, and it is steeped in blood.
Soon after Sarah arrives, strange things begin to happen. She learns that her mentor, who was working at the castle, may not have committed suicide after all. Could his cryptic notes be warnings? As Sarah parses his clues about Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved,” she manages to get arrested, to have tantric sex in a public fountain, and to discover a time-warping drug. She also catches the attention of a four-hundred-year-old dwarf, the handsome Prince Max, and a powerful U.S. senator with secrets she will do anything to hide.
I would say this is a story of crazy whimsy but that would not highlight the darkness, the depravity the, all encompassing WTF of it all. I mean there were several moments of this throughout the book but it was just full of, What the HELL moments. First the girl gets screwed (nice word for it) by some unknown guy in the bathroom on DAY 1, then she is turned on by a statue, and she becomes this indiscriminate screwing machine which i dont have a problem with if its not apologized for. Have her own it, and I’m cool. But its like she doing it then flagellating herself for it, which is just ridiculous in my book.
Then you have this sort of madcap mystery conspiracy about Beethoven’s lost love, his Immortal beloved and then this whole thing with the Senator’s old spy life and love letters to a communist, its just like I expected an alien to pop in there at some point and be like “Oh you didn’t see this one coming??? GOTCHA”
Oh father. Who knows what more to expect from this. It was entertaining though. Gotta say, not everybook can have a midget, pornographic statues, indiscriminate sex, a crazy spy senator and Beethoven.
Overall rating: B-
