Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #170077 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

A fun and witty read.
Kathleen "Katie" Chandler lives in a one bedroom apartment, with two roommates, in New York. Her awful boss goes from hot to cold in an instant and treats all her employees worse than any animal.

Suddenly Katie begins getting job offers, via email, from MSI, Inc. It has the feel of a scam, but Katie is getting desperate to change jobs. So she goes to an interview. Turns out that MSI stands for Magic, Spells, & Illusions. It is a company that sells tricks of the trade to the magical beings in the community. Katie does not take much persuading. She has been seeing people with wings (whose feet do not touch the ground), a stone gargoyle that changes positions and buildings (and seemed to wink once), and many other odd things. Katie has always assumed no one else seemed to notice because they were used to it and she had just not been living in NY long enough.

Katie takes the job and begins working in the department of Verification. Katie's ordinariness is rare. Few people, such as herself, lack even a drop of magic. Magic will not work on Katie. Therefore, she can easily spot a fake spell, see hidden clauses in contracts, detect any magically disguised intruders, and more.

The company needs "immunes" like Katie very badly. An ex-employee is threatening to sell black magic on the streets. If the magic community begins using dark spells, it will harm more than just the magical people in the world. Katie and her new bosses must save the world as we know it.

***** This is a stand alone novel, but I sure hope it becomes the first of a series. Katie's love life is not mentioned in my synopsis because she has her sights on more than one potential guy. I am told that this is Shanna Swendson's debut novel. I would never have known by reading it. The writing is superb and the story is seamless! Fans of Charlaine Harris's "Southern Vampire" series will especially enjoy this new author! A fun and witty read! *****

Magic in New York
Katie Chandler is a girl from Texas who has moved to New York, and is finding life in the city a bit of a disappointment. She doesn't like her job and is always short of money. Then she is recruited to a company called Magic, Spells & Illusions, Inc, who sell spells to the magic community. Katie has a rare talent, she is a mortal who is entirely immune to magic, she can see through any spell or any disguise, so she is valuable to MSI, because she can spot any attempt to slip a dodgy clause into a contract, or sell a worthless object disguised as a valuable one.

The company has a problem because someone is selling black magic spells to the stores that stock their magic products, and they need to stop him. Katie finds herself fighting evil, and also developing a crush on a dishy young executive called Owen. Katie is a nice girl, but not particularly interesting, and the same could be said of all the other characters in the book. The story is fairly amusing, but I felt it could have been both more exciting, and funnier. Pleasant, but a little bland.

Great fun and a great story
I thoroughly enjoyed this, big city business mixed with wizards, fairies, elves and enchanted frogs. Plenty of humour and enough action to keep it interesting. Can't wait for the next one.