Major spoilers regarding the plot of Dime Store Magic and Bitten, including their romances and relationships, throughout the review.
Much like the women in this book series so far, Dime Store Magic eats! Fetch your snacks now, because you won’t want to get up once you start turning these pages!
Long Series Thoughts
I feel like book three is often where a longer series starts to wind down a bit. It’s the section where the author is realising that their middle plot perhaps isn’t quite as compelling as the beginning or ending. It’s merely the journey the characters must take to get from point A to point C. When I think of series that made me feel this way, I’m thinking of ASOIAF, Stormlight, and Dune.
With the Women of the Otherworld series, it’s a little different because there are different protagonists and complimenting casts between books. The characters are lightly connected, but the speedy plots and changes to the main casts means that character arcs aren’t overwritten by book four or five.
It also means that certain protagonists are more likely than others to appeal to different contingents of readers. I like Elena a lot, and I’m looking forward to her return in Broken (entry #5 in Women of the Otherworld), but I can’t deny that Paige is much more my tempo and I’m already excited to start book four, Industrial Magic.
Narration Variation
It’s also nice to be surprised by a second narrator that I like more than the first. It’s much more common for me to start a multi-protagonist series and prefer the characters I’m started off with, and then to begrudge the later characters. This was certainly true of both ASOIAF and The Chronicles of the Avatar (Kyoshi, my beloved!).
I think I like Paige so much because she’s a fair bit younger than Elena, and I relate to some of her anxieties more than I relate to Elena’s learned confidence. That said, for a 23-year old. Paige is a magnificent over-achiever, successfully managing her own business, grief, and a lightly difficult ward. She’s a real girl boss, even if she doesn’t always see herself in that light.
Thoughts on Shared Universe Novels
I’m still expecting to reach a point where the shared universe starts to frustrate me—it happens with every other shared-universe franchise I consume—but this is the third protagonist I’m reading in Kelley Armstrong’s world of supernatural women and I’m not annoyed yet. I have some thoughts about why this is.
Separate Stories
So far, Elena’s stories are quite distanced from Paige’s. Paige is introduced in book two, but I felt comfortable recommending friends and colleagues to start on book three, Dime Store Magic, instead of discovering Paige through Elena’s view first.
It might feel a little stranger to read Dime Store Magic first and then to see her in Stolen, but otherwise I think it’s been done well for the suggested reading order.
Limited Character References
Referenced characters from other books don’t feel overly cool in books where they’re not the focus. Paige has a short call with Elena in Dime Store Magic, but it’s a genuinely sweet commiseration between two women, and not at all a marketing ploy to make Elena seem momentarily cool to sell more books (which is how I often feel about the MCU and some book series with shared literary universes).
Limited Main Cast
The community of supernaturals doesn’t feel too large at any one point. I’m not struggling to remember ‘whose who’ in each book, nor am I constantly wondering if I should remember a niche side character from another book. Everything feels well contained and considered in a way that I really like as a reader. I feel like all the parts of the puzzle are present in this book, the book I’ve bought, and not that I’m going to have buy DLC (another book or novella) to truly finish it.
This makes me more excited to read more from Kelley Armstrong. The sensation of finishing a good story that is well-told is something that I struggle to find in today’s world of never-ending series, decade-long author hiatuses, and Netflix TV cancellations. Robin Hobb and Kelley Armstrong are two authors that are saving my day on this front.
Paige and Lucas
One of the reasons I enjoyed this book more than Bitten and Stolen is definitely down to the chemistry between Paige and Lucas. For me, their romance is infinitely more inviting than Elena and Clay’s.
That said, I was healthily suspicious of Lucas for most of the book. Something about his introduction, his repeated insistence that he is a natural liar, and the trope that the first love interest is never the true love (as was somewhat true of Bitten and is actually the premise of Once Upon a Broken Heart) had me totally convinced that he would turn out to be a baddie. I expected Lucas to be the death of romantic innocence for Paige, and I was glad that it was not true.
I will have to see how that continues in the sequel, Industrial Magic, but for now, I’m convinced that this power couple is here to stay and to slay (evil baddies).
An 18+ Book
I’d be remiss to discuss Paige and Lucas’ relationship in our 18+ book reviews section without commenting a little on what makes this title 18+.
Compared to Elena’s entries in this series, the one sex scene comes quite late, but I found it very exciting and fun. It was a good contrast with the almost-rape scene that comes later, which was very scary.
Additionally, the horror scenes were well written; adequately gory without making me queasy, but always keeping me on the edge of my reading furniture (bed/ sofa/ plane seat).
Savannah Levine
Paige and Savannah’s relationship is an odd one. Paige, 23F, is the caretaker of Savannah, 13F. In many ways, Paige is navigating the space between mother- and sisterhood. As an older sister, with six years between me and my younger sister, I found parts of Paige and Savannah’s written relationship quite emotional.
That aside, Savannah’s chaotic presence in the book made for a lot of great plot progression, and I totally bought her logic—even if I didn’t agree with it! She was a very compelling teenager in a book series for (and about) adults.
Plotting: Escalation of Threats
Major spoilers for Dime Store Magic in this section.
The speed of Dime Store Magic‘s predecessors was fast, but I particularly enjoyed the pacing in this book. We start in peaceful suburbia in a traditional family setting, and this climbs from one horror to another. It starts with easy but upsetting threats, raises to trick-or-treat level spooks, escalates further to riots on the front lawn, ups the ante again to magical murders and cop chases, all before the crescendo that is a direct attack on the home and a kidnapping.
Final Thoughts on Dime Store Magic
This is easily my favourite book in the Women of the Otherworld series so far, which is an unusual statement for book three in a series! I would give this book 4.5/5.0 stars, and it’s currently my favourite title from Beyond the Spine’s 18+ book reviews section!
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