Review: "The Last Magician" by Lisa Maxwell

Quick Summary

Type: Novel, book 1 in The Last Magician series

Genre: Fantasy, historical fiction

Back Cover: "Stop the Magician. Steal the book. Save the future.

In modern-day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic—the Mageus—live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power—and often their lives.

Esta is a talented thief, and she’s been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she’s there. And all of Esta’s training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1902 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order—and the Brink—before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.

But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.

Read Time: 3 days

Rating: 3.25 stars

Review

This was a fun and enjoyable story. The stakes took a little while to figure out - maybe I'm just an idiot, but the veil around Manhattan took me a minute to figure out. And I'm still a little confused as to how and why those born with magic were the ones to set it up, not the Order. But it's entirely possible those questions will be answered in future books, if I read them.

At points in this book, the story dragged a little. The set-up to the big heist got a little slow, and the big twist was extremely predictable. I think I figured it out about twenty percent in? For a while I was hoping for a more creative twist, but nope. Nibsy is Professor Lachlan and the bad guy. Called it from a mile away.

In all fairness, I didn't predict that Dolph was Esta's father. That came as a small surprise to me. I also genuinely thought Harte would actually kill himself, so the fact that he didn't also surprised me (but also, it didn't really).

The best part of this book, in my mind, was the flirting between Esta and Harte. I love a good enemies-to-lovers story, and that's what I got. The magic and mystery and heist stuff was a side plot - or it should have been, because for once, the romance was way more interesting. Again, the plot twists were super predictable. Doesn't help that the whole thing was spoiled right at the beginning. Without the first few chapters, there's a good chance I would have been more surprised by something in this story.

But still, it was a pretty fun read. Better than some I've read (looking at you, These Violent Delights).