A review by lost_windsock
The Magician's Heart by J.P. Jackson

3.5

This was a really interesting book! The plot was definitely intriguing and it gave off a little bit of a Desden Files vibe, which I enjoyed! I wasn't fully sold on the chemistry between Allan and Patrick, but I did enjoy their banter and their interactions didn't feel stilted or weird, it just didn't seem realistic that such deep feelings would have developed so quickly. I had mixed feelings about Allan. For a lot of the book, I felt like he was being a bit whiney, and he only seemed to have one setting: upset about something. Which, okay, that's fair, considering what he'd just gone through and the expectations he was facing, but it did get a little old. Conversely, I did enjoy his sarcasm and his snark, and overall I liked him as a character. Daddy Patrick was a bit of a mixed feelings situation for me too, but to a lesser extent. It felt like he was being pretty thick about the way he decided to train Allan at first, which luckily was called out pretty quickly, but with the number of times he brought up his age and how experienced he was, I just felt like it took him a little too long to pull his head out of his ass. I think he was a really sweet man, though, and I did think that he was a good match for Allan. He was able to handle Allan's moodiness and snark with a heaping helping of his own snarky teasing. This book was actually pretty low heat, with a few fade-to-black moments that I wish had been the full scene, because it had the potential to build that relationship between them a little more on-page and make their closeness a little more believable. This was a fun book to read, though, and I would totally read a series of these two going demon hunting if that ever became a thing!