TITLE: ⟫ Just Like Magic
AUTHOR: ⟫ Ellie Roth
SERIES: ⟫ Longview Romance
RATING: ⟫ 3.5/5
BLURB: ⟫ The witches are rioting again.
Figures. They overreact to everything.
Anwer Alexander, son of the notoriously anti-magic governor, has everything he wants in life: a good job, amazing parents, and an annoying brat of a younger sister. But when his sister Shay manifests the same kind of magic powers that get countless teenagers kicked out of their houses, Anwer has to scramble to find her a witch who can show her how to control them—and make sure their parents don’t find out.
Christian Lewis, the most powerful magic user in the tristate area, doesn’t know what to do with himself when the Alexander siblings ask him to teach Shay in exchange for Anwer helping Chris with a life-changing ritual. But no matter how much he hates their parents, Chris has never been able to say no to mentoring a newbie magic user from a toxic household—even though her scowling older brother infuriates him.
As the long summer days grow warmer, Anwer and Chris find themselves slowly drawing closer to each other over Shay’s training. Sparks fly when Shay decides that she wants to compete in the Santiago, the largest magic tournament of the year, but will the five-day competition be the beginning of something more or the end of everything Anwer and Chris hoped for?
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Just Like Magic is a contemporary LGBTQ+ romantic fantasy that features a modern world imbued with magic, a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance, found family vibes, tragic backstories, mild to moderate steaminess, major angst, and a happy ending for our protagonists (with a few plot threads left open for later books).
*Content warnings available on website.
REVIEW: ⟫ I am in two minds about this story. Admittedly, it did say that it was slow burn so I wasn’t expecting insta-love or anything like that. However, as the first book in a series, there was a lot of world-building and plot that had to be fitted in and as such, for me personally, the romance part of things did suffer.
The characters were nicely written – Chris and Anwer both had good reasons for the way they felt, it wasn’t manufactured, ignored or blown out of proportion. The plot was extremely interesting and the metaphor of children with magic being thrown out of their homes hit home without feeling like you were being bashed over the head.
I enjoyed the magic tournament and the things that happened there – it was brilliant to see Chris in his element and demonstrating his power, rather than us just being told that he was an incredibly powerful magic user. The additional characters were also well-rounded and not just there to pad out the background.
I found Anwer’s parents to be a little of a caricature but then it would be difficult to give them more depth when they weren’t the main thrust of the story. I was very interested in the persecution of the magic users and how it was described and I will be looking out for further stories in the series in the hope that it is examined in more depth.
The romance between Chris and Anwer was sweet – when we did spend time with them, it was possible to see them falling in love with each other and the reason why. I especially enjoyed when Chris was training Shay and Anwer was struggling to fight his fear/hatred of magic whilst falling under Chris’s spell. There were certain aspects of things that I wasn’t very happy with – especially with regard to how much it was made into a thing that being magic was an integral part of who people were – but that definitely falls under the category of YMMV. Overall, I thought it was an enjoyable read and I am looking forward to reading more in the series.
I received an ARC from GRR.
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