Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE: Fluke and the Frontier Farce

SERIES: The Fantastic Fluke Book 4

AUTHOR: Sam Burns

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH: 245 pages

RELEASE DATE: February 24, 2022

BLURB: 

It’s been a long year for Sage and his friends, and all of Junction, California, and it’s not over yet.

Freddy’s school of magic is still a mystery, and figuring it out would be enough work, but the investigation leads them to the mysterious coded notes of Junction’s long-dead first magical artist, and then to the last place any of them ever expected to end up: the nineteenth century. Worse yet, when they get there Fluke is missing, and Sage isn’t sure he can get back home without his best friend.

Now—or is it then?—they just need to find Fluke, decode the notes, avoid changing the past, dodge evil Uncle Jonathon and the shady French nobleman at his side, and maybe most importantly, find their way home.

But there’s more in the past than trouble, and Gideon might want to stay there with his wife. If Sage has to leave him behind, is it worth returning to his own time at all?

REVIEW: 

🦊  🦊  🦊

Sam Burns delivers her most addictive The Fantastic Fluke story yet with her latest installment, Fluke and the Frontier Farce.  This story has Sage, Gideon, and Freddy teaming up with Sage’s Grandmother Iris’ boyfriend Anson, the Dominus of the Junction, to discover Freddy’s school of magic. Nothing seems to fit, but they have a lead through a set of encoded notes.  Perplexingly, though, the notes seem to indicate that they need to travel back in time to the nineteenth century to unravel the mystery.

Like the three previous books, The Fantastic Fluke (book one),  Fluke and the Faithless Father (book two), and Fluke and the Faultline Fiasco (book three), the storyline of Fluke and the Frontier Farce completely captivated me.  I could not put this book down.  The plot is a mashup of magic, mystery, and memories.  The time travel twistiness keeps you guessing right up until the end.  

This is a continuing storyline, so you need to have read these series books in order.  As Freddy, Sage and Gideon unearth truths about Freddy’s magical powers, they unearth some unexpected answers to questions that have lingered since book one, and new questions arise as well. Yet the plot never gets overwhelming or confusing even as Ms. Burns constantly shifts the pieces around on the chessboard.

Ms. Burns employs her well-crafted prose full of snark and humor to deliver Sage’s single narrator viewpoint and his very funny self-deprecating commentary.  Sage’s sarcasm and irreverence as he interprets the attitudes and reactions of the characters and the events transpiring around him are hysterical, especially when delivered in his deadpan tone. (Note on the single narrator viewpoint:  Ms. Burns has been releasing monthly Fluke short stories over the past five or six months.  Those shorts are combined into a chapter of Fluke and the Frontier Farce told from Fluke’s point of view.)

But the best part of this book, and the series overarchingly, is Ms. Burns’ depiction of the love and loyalty between the characters in this eclectic-found family of magicians, their familiars, and their friends.  We see much more of Freddy and Anson and meet some new characters as well.  Sage and Gideon’s well-settled relationship is on full display.  We see their deep and abiding love for each other and the unwavering trust between them.  The steam factor is pretty low, but that’s not what this story is about.  It’s not a love story.  It’s a paranormal action/adventure story featuring an endearing couple already in love.  

As much as I adore Sage and Gideon, I love even more Sage’s relationship with Fluke, his adorable, charismatic, crafty fox familiar.   Sage and Fluke’s connection is central to the plot of this story, and Ms. Burns digs into the tight bond between them and what it means.  Fluke is as essential to Sage’s magic as he is to Sage himself.  When Fluke goes missing, we viscerally feel Sage’s devastation from Fluke’s absence and his distractedness towards anything else while Fluke is missing:

“[I]t was kind of hard to focus on anything when I didn’t know where my familiar was.  It was like a piece of my heart was missing.”

Fluke and the Frontier Farce is fantastic fare you should not forgo.  While subtle and understated, it’s remarkably different and superbly executed.  Ms. Burns has consistently exceeded my expectations with each successive book in this series.  Start the series from the beginning, or reread it if you already have, and then greedily gobble up this latest addictive series entry.  There’s one more book to go and I’m already lamenting when it’s over because I wish Fluke’s adventures would never end.

🦊  🦊  🦊

RATING:

BUY LINK: 

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