{"id":309,"date":"2015-01-04T15:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-01-04T20:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/?p=309"},"modified":"2015-01-04T15:00:48","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T20:00:48","slug":"book-review-strange-magic-a-yancy-lazarus-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/?p=309","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Strange Magic–A Yancy Lazarus Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: Strange Magic was given to me by the author as an Advance Release Copy in exchange for an honest review.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Strange<\/a><\/p>\n

Yancy Lazarus is having a bad day: there\u2019s a bullet lodged in his butt cheek, his face looks like the site of a demolition derby, and he\u2019s been saran-wrapped to a banquet table.<\/p>\n

Yancy is a bluesman, a rambler, a gambler, but not much more. Sure, he can do a little magic\u2014maybe even more than just a little magic\u2014but he knows enough to keep his head down and stay clear of freaky-deaky hoodoo like this business in LA. Somehow though, he\u2019s been set up to take a real bad fall\u2014the kind of very permanent fall that leaves a guy with a toe tag—J. A. Hunter<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

.<\/p>\n

Rival L.A. gangs, a fanatic mage from India looking to trip Armageddon, and a small army of powerful demonic hyena-faced body snatchers collide to take the fun out of Yancy Lazarus\u2019 day. Despite his penchant for smart-assed remarks, cholesterol-laden barbecue, smokes and dive bars, Yancy does have a sincere desire to stay alive. It\u2019s just that some days are harder than others.<\/p>\n

The action starts, and doesn\u2019t let up from the first chapter to the last. Hunter tears up the pages with scary and nearly unstoppable demons, gang intrigue, a little backstabbing from supposed friends and [spoiler] an actual backstabbing in the final scene. Here is Hunter\u2019s strength, keeping the action rolling, with plenty of magical fireworks and heart-stopping situations to keep you turning pages to the end. <\/p>\n

Hunter has an interesting way of turning phrases, which is part of the fun. Take this line for instance:<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go for a ride,\u201d he grunted with the linguistic grace of a large boulder.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Other times however, Hunter has an unfortunate tendency to lapse in cliches such as this line:<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWakey, wakey, eggs and bakey,\u201d I said. \u201csadly, there\u2019s no coffee and we don\u2019t have time for it-\u201c<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, lines like that I don\u2019t need, but maybe you\u2019ll find them funny in context. Personally I think Hunter tries too hard to make Yancy\u2019s voice cool-hearted and bad-ass when Lazarus\u2019 actions plainly speak for themselves. <\/p>\n

We get pulled so quickly from scene to scene that we learn little of Lazarus\u2019 backstory. There is a lovely chapter were he flash backs to his service in Vietnam, which does show his grit, determination and ability to persevere, and a little bit about the wife and children he abandoned. But what we don\u2019t get is how Lazarus \u201ccame into,\u201d as he says, his magical powers or how he trained in them. This left me scratching my head, as it seemed an important bit of world building, but no doubt we\u2019ll learn more about this in future installments as this is clearly a series. <\/p>\n

An entertaining and fun ride, Strange Magic is worth the price of admission. <\/p>\n

Available on Amazon <\/a>January 16, 2015. <\/p>\n

Copyrighted Image used by permission of the author. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: Strange Magic was given to me by the author as an Advance Release Copy in exchange for an honest review. Yancy Lazarus is having a bad day: there\u2019s a bullet lodged in his butt cheek, his face looks like the site of a demolition derby, and he\u2019s been saran-wrapped to a banquet table. Yancy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[39,48,171,239,292,338],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review-2","tag-a-fanatic-mage-from-india-looking-to-trip-armageddon","tag-and-a-small-army-of-powerful-demonic-hyena-faced-body-snatchers","tag-j-a-hunter","tag-rival-l-a-gangs","tag-strange-magic","tag-yancy-lazarus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}