Monday 2 September 2019

Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic, book 1)

By Maya Motayne


Blurb: 
Set in a Latinx-inspired world, a face-changing thief and a risk-taking prince must team up to defeat a powerful evil they accidentally unleashed.

To Finn Voy, magic is two things: a knife to hold under the chin of anyone who crosses her…and a disguise she shrugs on as easily as others pull on cloaks.

As a talented faceshifter, it’s been years since Finn has seen her own face, and that’s exactly how she likes it. But when Finn gets caught by a powerful mobster, she’s forced into an impossible mission: steal a legendary treasure from Castallan’s royal palace or be stripped of her magic forever.

After the murder of his older brother, Prince Alfehr is first in line for the Castallan throne. But Alfie can’t help but feel that he will never live up to his brother’s legacy. Riddled with grief, Alfie is obsessed with finding a way to bring his brother back, even if it means dabbling in forbidden magic.

But when Finn and Alfie’s fates collide, they accidentally unlock a terrible, ancient power—which, if not contained, will devour the world. And with Castallan’s fate in their hands, Alfie and Finn must race to vanquish what they have unleashed, even if it means facing the deepest darkness in their pasts. 

Review: 
So I got this book back in April in a FairyLoot box, I was in a reading slump when I received it so I never actually got round to reading it straight away sadly. I now regret that slightly because this book was just truly amazing but it did allow me to save it for my Newts and made them more enjoyable.

This book contains a lot of magic and a lot of twists. It deals with grief in different ways which is really nice. The characters also have totally different personalities even though they both suffer with similar anxiety issues.

Basically, Alfie lost his brother due to some person with a magic skill that I won't go into detail about. This is discovered in the book and I don't want it to be spoiler, but basically Alfie's brother was due to be King but he ended up dying so that made Alfie next to the throne. After his brother's death, he goes away on a ship hoping to never come back but he discovers that there are some magic books up for grabs back on his home island so he returns. His mother thinks he is home for good by Alfie only wants these books so he can get this ancient magic to bring his brother back from death.

When Alfie is trying to get these books we meet Finn. Finn is just wanting these books, I'm not sure it actually tells us why she wants them. When these two characters meet it is quite hilarious but also cute at the same time. I wasn't expecting Finn to be a major character throughout the book to start of with, I just thought it was a part of the story-line but it was really nice to meet her again. There is one part that makes you go 'oooo' between these and makes you think of something but this is one of the huge plot twists. I will mention that it has something to do with the cloak but that's all.

So throughout this book we go on several adventures and we have different occurrences between these two main characters but then they start working together. Alfie's relationship with his teachers and best friend is also quite special, really this book is nice for a friendship story.

As expected, there is feelings between Finn and Alfie, it's not all lovey doves it is actually sweet and if all romances were like this then I'd read them more. But some are just too graphic for me and this one isn't it's just perfect. I just love how they look out for each other, support each other and then they still have that denial stage where they say they don't like each other.

The main story of this book is also really good and I love how there was so much action and adventure. The characters have no negative things towards them and I can't dislike anything about how they react to situations because it was how a normal person would react.

It's just perfect and this book was just 100% a 5 star book for me.

*SPOILERS*

So FairyLoot chose to have this cover blue and have blue sprayed edges for a reason, I have had this confirmed by them as that was all I could think about when it clicked in my head. The reason is for Alfie, he describes his magic as a dark blue, the blue of a children's book sky. The original book was red and I'm guessing this was for Finn's magic as she is a deep red. This is such a cool idea and I love the designers for this book as it just adds a whole new meaning to the cover. 

Favourite Character: Finn


Read: 04/08/19 - 11/08/19


5 stars out of 5


Written by Sammie
Check out Sammie's review of FairyLoot - April 2019.

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