Reviewed by Sarina
TITLE: How Not to Summon Your True Love
AUTHOR: Sasha L. Miller
PUBLISHER: Less Than Three Press
LENGTH: 144 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2016
BLURB:
Though it doesn’t really come as a surprise, Cy is still crushed when he’s dumped. His relationship with Alex had lasted longer than all previous attempts, and started promising when Alex had proclaimed he was perfectly okay with Cy being asexual.
On impulse, convinced no one will ever really see him as worthy relationship material, Cy turns to a book that belonged to his late mother, a grimoire of magic spells that obviously won’t work. It’s a stupid idea, and even if magic was real there’s no way a true love summoning spell would work for him.
REVIEW:
Depressed after yet another relationship ends with disaster, Cy begins looking for a way to distract himself and finds himself leafing through an unusual book that once belonged to his mother. The idea of magic is ludicrous but when he comes across a spell to summon his true love, he figures he hasn’t got anything to lose. What starts out as just a way to take his mind off of his problems quickly morphs into a much more complicated situation when it works, however. Seriously, magic? Who knew, right?
I loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it! When an author can make me laugh within the first handful of pages, it’s a fair bet that the story is going to be a good one and I was not disappointed in the slightest. Firstly, I’ve never read a book with an asexual main character before but I’m hoping this won’t be my last one. I loved Cy! He was much more surprised when the summoning actually worked than the poor man he’d brought to him and even when finding out, and accepting, that magic was actually a real thing, he didn’t change who he was or how he acted. Dig was amazing, as well. I loved how patient he was with Cy and how determined he was that Cy not be pressured into anything that he didn’t want regardless of how easy it would make things for them both.
The bulk of the story takes place during a road trip to return Dig home but it was anything but boring or monotonous; you really get to see the characters shine here and I loved the focus on their interactions. The pacing was great, as was the writing, but my favorite part was by far the world building. I found myself drawn into the whole urban fantasy vibe and the way the magic society was set up was interesting enough that I’m actually disappointed I didn’t get to see more of it. If there was ever another book written in the world created here I would be ALL over it, no joke. I just loved this book from start to finish and I will be re-reading it fairly quickly while wishing all the while that I had a sequel to sink into right after. I highly recommend this, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!
RATING:
BUY LINKS:
The name caught my attention but your review has sealed the deal. Thank you for writing it. I’m off to purchase it now 🙂