Sinister Magic (Death before Dragons Series)

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I’m Val Thorvald, and I’m an assassin. When magical bad guys hurt people, I take care of them. Permanently. This doesn’t make me popular with the rest of the magical community—as you can tell from the numerous break-ins and assassination attempts I’ve endured over the years. But thanks to my half-elven blood, a powerful sword named Chopper, and a telepathic tiger with an attitude, I’ve always been able to handle my problems with aplomb. Maybe…

Book 1 – Sinister Magic  4 Stars
Nice beginning to the series.  It moved along well.  Introduced all the characters well.  Got a good idea of the world this is happening in.  Not much really happened though, so without the world building I don’t know if this book would have been any good.

Book 2 – Battle Bond   3 Stars
Lots and lots of nothing going on.  She was going here and there and really just stumbling on things.  Doesn’t look promising for the rest of the books.

Book 3 – Tangled Truths  3 Stars
She is trying to turn over a new leaf, not being only a killer of bad visitors.  Her ex-family is here and the normal self righteous daughter.  The ex-husband is good, surprising since most authors make them out to be dipsticks.  The story was okay.  Again like book 2 nothing really happened except at the very end of the book, which leads into book 4.

Book 4 – Elven Doom  3 Stars
Really a reused story from a bunch of different authors, no originality at all.  Since the dragon is around so little the relationship there is progressing but not understandably, it seems forced like we need to get to this spot so lets get going.  The world or environment that the main character lives in is more fleshed out here so that was good, but again so-so.  I would not pay for these books beyond book 1, because they are simple reads and included with unlimited I will continue.

Book 5 – False Security  4 Stars
The book moved along nicely.  I find that this women is suppose to be great at figuring things out, she isn’t.  Both book 4 and 5 it is very clear she is a deadly fool.  She just jumps into things ready to destroy and kill without any real plan.  She really doesn’t figure anything out, she just keeps pushing forward and all of a sudden everything is laid out in front of us.  The author is not giving us tidbits here and there to figure this out on our own.

Note: all the books so far could be made into 90-120 minute movies and you would really lose nothing.  So much of the books are filler that you seriously could make a movie and keep all the story.  With a 1 second look by the actor would take care of 3 to 5 pages of ramblings

Book 6 –

 

 

Book .5 (Prequel)  Mist and Magic  2.5 Stars
Short book, about 60% the length of the rest of the books.  This book could be made into a 42 minute TV episode.  Very little actual story that goes with the main story line.  I read this after book 5 cause that was when it came out.  If it was the first book you read in the series, you probably won’t read any more since it is filled with worthless inner dialog and memories of a throw away character.  You actually have the throw away character in the story for 2 pages, that’s it, but pages after pages after pages of memories.