Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
/Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
Available June 4, 2019
Ivy Gamble has always wanted magic. The real magic. The magic her sister has. Instead of going to a magical high school and practicing spells and charms, she barely graduated normal high school. After her mother’s death, Ivy’s dream of joining the FBI disappeared, just like her relationship with her sister. After years of barely speaking, the sisters are thrown together when Ivy is hired to investigate a murder at Osthorne Academy, a school for magical children and where Ivy’s sister Tabitha, teaches.
Now, faced with a brutal murder, hormonal teenagers, a prophecy, and a new love interest, Ivy struggles to pick out the truths from the sea of lies and deception created by everyone involved.
This was a very twisty and turny mystery that kept me guessing all the way to the last page. Everyone had a secret to hide and some secrets were far more deadly than others. Ivy has her own big secret to keep-she lets everyone assume that she has magic and knows what they’re talking about. But Ivy doesn’t have a clue and this puts at her a significant disadvantage, especially when she catches the eye of a teacher and uses his interest in her to gain more information about the case. Ivy also spends a great deal of time lying to herself-about her own abilities, her own strengths, and her ability to consume bottles and bottles of booze.
Teenagers struggling to find their identity, young love, and emergency contraception played a huge role in this book and I felt it was handled really well. I really appreciated how the author wrote about abortions and how the school nurse was able to adminster a magical abortion before a certain time frame and then referred the young women to medical doctors after that time had passed. This wasn’t done to make things more difficult for the young women, it was done to keep them safe and healthy. Amazing how writing about responsible health care feels so progressive.
This was a great magical mystery and I really enjoyed it. I really like fantasy that mixes with our own reality-the fact that magic is real but we don’t discuss with people who aren’t magical. Magic for Liars has the perfect blend of fantasy, mystery, and teenage drama to keep your interest from start to finish.
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Full Disclosure Time: I received a free digital copy of this book from Netgalley. Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. All opinions are my own.