The Last Magician

The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell is a YA fantasy novel with magic, mayhem and more.

In a battle that has gone on for decades, Mageus, those with magical abilities, have had to hide in the shadows or risk being persecuted by the Order, a secret society that wants to exterminate all magic in favor of science. In the hopes of winning this fight, the Order created the Brink, a magical barrier that traps all Mageus on the island of Manhattan. Any who wish to cross the Brink, risk losing their magic or sub-coming to death entirely.

In modern day New York, magic is fading and a teenage girl is the only one who can help strengthen magic and destroy the Brink. Esta is a thief and has been training all her life for this one task, to travel back in time and collect an ancient book of magic before a man, known only as the Magician, destroys it and ruins any chance of saving magic.

But things and people aren’t what they seem and Esta becomes torn between doing what is right and doing what must be done. The past is a dangerous place and Esta must make even more dangerous allies in order for her plans to succeed. Can Esta complete her task? Will she be able to help save magic? And who can she trust when time doesn’t always stand still?

There is something about a ragtag group of misfits I just can’t get enough of. You just gotta love characters on the outskirts of society, who live in the shadows but still have a heart. We get quite a few of those in this book. In fact, I couldn’t help thinking about  Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows a few times when Dolph, Esta and the team were all working together, each with their own motives and secrets.

I wasn’t actually expecting to like this book, but it turned out to be a lot more dynamic then I thought it was going to be. The story is actually pretty straightforward until about 3/4 of the way through and then we learn a whole lot more. At first, I wasn’t sure how this book was going to be anything other than a standalone but the last few chapters gave us a lot of branches to go down for a sequel. I am sort of hoping this one will be a duology though and not a series because I just don’t know if there is enough there to keep it going at the same level.

Overall, this was an entertaining read and I am looking forward to the next one. This one gets a solid 4 stars from me.

That’s all for now!

-M-