Motherducking Magic
by Michelle Fox
I first heard about this series recently in a paranormal
reading page on Facebook. Someone raised the question of what tropes in the
genre had begun to bother us? I said, the fact that everyone has to be a big
badass – a fantastic fighter or awesome magic user. They all have these
exceptional skills, they just aren’t recognized.
A couple people chimed in with series that they claimed did
not follow this trope and they loved them anyway. I immediately went and bought
the first book in each series.
Motherducking Magic (Bad Magic Bounty Hunter Series) was the
first book I chose to read. I finished it and promptly bought the next book.
I’m halfway through the second.
They are very, very funny.
Now, to be clear, the main witch, Sylvie Orion, is a very,
very good bounty hunter. The problem is she’s a very, very bad witch. There’s
no juice to her juju. And when you’re a witch without magic, you are an
outsider looking in on society. It’s like people think it will catch, like you
might drain their magic away. No one wanted to be her friend in school, she
didn’t get invited to anything or asked out, ever.
The first case we’re introduced to Sylvie on is trying to
bring in one of her former classmates, one of the “mean girls” from high school
– Lydia Pettie. She’s one of those people who doesn’t believe the rules apply
to her. She’s above them. Well, when we first meet her, she’s sitting on a
ten-foot high metal shelving unit in a warehouse. She’s actually filming the
situation for social media.
“Hey everyone, remember Sylvie
Orion? She sucks just as much as ever. Let’s teach her not to cross her
betters.” She pulled a wand out of her cleavage, and sill holding the phone in
one hand, she began an incantation.
Sylvia soon finds herself embroiled in an even bigger pile
of doggie doo-doo. One of her bounties skipped out on his appointed court time
and she has to get him back, or she loses major bucks.
Seems like anything that can go wrong, does go wrong, with
Sylvie, but we love her anyway. She has a good sense of humor, and she keeps on
trucking.
I enjoyed how the story incorporated magical explanations
into everyday items and uses of phrases. (There’s a reason why she says
“Motherducking” and those little blue pills we hear about aren’t just pharmaceuticals.)
It reminds me a bit of a cross between Kim Harrison’s
Hollows series with its magical urban setting full of witches, vampires, and
shifters, and the movie Ella Enchanted, with the mean girls and the
sense of humor. A perfect combination to me.
There’s lots of fun sexual tension but no seriously graphic
sex scenes.
The bounty who skipped, a shifter named Sheridan, turns out
to play a much bigger role in the stories than I would have guessed. I can’t
help but wonder if that isn’t because the author didn’t know when she started
writing either? She says in some comments at the end of the book that she likes
her stories to grow organically. Maybe we can be surprised because she was
surprised and didn’t inadvertently telegraph the intent.
Whatever the reason, I’m finding the series surprising, fun,
and funny. I hope she’ll be writing more.
