Title Magic Dark and Strange Series --- Author Kelly Powell Cover Art --- Publisher Margaret K. McElderry Books - 2020 First Printing Margaret K. McElderry Books - 2020 Category Young Adult Warnings None Main Characters Catherine Daly, Guy Nolan Main Elements Wizards

The Bone Witch meets Sherlock Holmes in this thrilling historical fantasy about a girl with the ability to raise the dead who must delve into her city’s dangerous magical underworld to stop a series of murders.

Catherine Daly has an unusual talent. By day she works for a printer. But by night, she awakens the dead for a few precious moments with loved ones seeking a final goodbye. But this magic comes with a price: for every hour that a ghost is brought back, Catherine loses an hour from her own life.

When Catherine is given the unusual task of collecting a timepiece from an old grave, she is sure that the mysterious item must contain some kind of enchantment. So she enlists Guy Nolan, the watchmaker’s son, to help her dig it up. But instead of a timepiece, they find a surprise: the body of a teenage boy. And as they watch, he comes back to life—not as the pale imitation that Catherine can conjure, but as a living, breathing boy. A boy with no memory of his past.

This magic is more powerful than any Catherine has ever encountered, and revealing it brings dangerous enemies. Catherine and Guy must race to unravel the connection between the missing timepiece and the undead boy. For this mysterious magic could mean the difference between life and death—for all of them.

I'll admit, I didn't find this one particularly memorable. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't love it either, though I can't put my finger on why I didn't like it more. I found the worldbuilding a little lacking, not the Victorian setting, that worked well, but the magic system. We have people who have magic...but is it something everyone can do or only certain people? Can people learn any magic of their chosing or if you are a necromancer, you're a necromancer and that's that? Is magic inherited? Guy gets his magic from his father but I didn't feel Chatherine's family were much into raising the dead, in fact I'm not even sure they were aware of her "side-business", thinking she worked at a printer's shop. On the positive side, magic has consequences. Want to raise the dead for an hour? Well, you have to give up an hour of your life. A high price indeed.

I must admit I didn't figure out where the timepiece was, I should have since it was in retrospect glaring obvious, but maybe it was a good thing I didn't since that kept my brain trying to figure it out along with the other characters.

I'm sort of running out of things to say since it neither stood out as good nor as bad. The romance was sweet, the girl finally hooking up with the good guy and not the bad boy, the romance was a very minor part of the tale anyway, its Victorian times, was a big deal just to be walking about with someone of the opposite sex let alone geting into a passionate kissing session. Everything wrapped up with a neat bow in the end, the villains either imprisonned or redeemed. It didn't particularly instill any particular atmosphere, you'd think a tale about necromancy would be creepier but felt kind of run of the mill. Perhaps for younger YA readers than some of the others I read on rivetedlit.com for free during October 2021. But as a freebie, can't complain, it was an enjoyable enough mystery, and not every tale needs a complicated ending, sometimes a happy one doesn't hurt.