Rating: 4.75🌈
The Magi Accounts is a dark, brutal urban fantasy series. It’s a ugly universe of constant warfare between aliens coming through a human made rift and world governments trying to prevail against them using any and all mean possible.
For an unrecognizable US government, it’s meant that they’ve been treating the magi (magical human beings) like slaves, war fodder, and war tools. And worse. Subjecting them to the most horrific abuse, housed in breeding compounds, tagged and collared, little more than test subjects.
Several of our most beloved characters are magi and we go through some gut wrenching, horrific events with them in these books , including attempts of sexual assault and actual torture that brings home their dire situation in this dark universe.
Believe in the trigger warnings here.
Next on the low species list as regarded by the US government is shifters. While also in need of them as soldiers in shifter/magi teams against the powerful aliens arriving through the rift, the US government treats them barely better then the magi. They are tagged but have a hard won autonomy the magi could never hope for.
Notaro has built a remarkable tale of pain, horror and heartbreaking relationships amidst a war that only seems to be escalating, as a new enemy, made up of humans and witches comes for both the aliens and the shifter/magi population.
I fell in love with the growing found family that started with the bonded dyad magi pair, Madeo and Jude, together since early childhood. Traumatized, abused, sent to war as children as weapons, they trusted, with excellent reason, no one but themselves.
Now they are not only a part of Cosmo Ono-Nai’s pride, but Madeo is blood-bonded to Cosmo and his Alpha mate. So much change, almost more than either magi can emotionally handle after their abusive past.
Notaro’s stories have been building on the complicated bonds within the Ono-Nai pride and its success with helping the characters grow into a different person who sees perhaps a future with a relationship and a hope they never anticipated.
That’s a glimpse of lightness through the darkness we finally get to see here but not before some new horrors are visited upon the teams and characters as they fight against the Red Cloak conspiracy and new aliens , even dangers from within.
This is an exciting, suspenseful, dark series. It’s full of haunting moments and characters that stay with you. And each new story manages to bring an expansion on every level. From the series arc themes of slavery, species bigotry, child sexual assault, PTSD, loss and it’s ramifications, and so much more to the incredible growth the characters are able to demonstrate, emotionally and magically.
I always look forward to the next book. With great anticipation and a bit of fear. Because with each bit of hope we and the characters are allowed, it always comes at enormous personal cost.
Onward to the next story and this outstanding series step forward.
I’m highly recommending it and this. Read them in the order they are written for character development and plot.
The Magi Accounts:
🔹The Scars That Bind Us #1
🔹The Shackles That Hold Us #2
🔹A Date To Impress Him #2.5
🔹A Purpose That Restores Us #3
🔹A Holiday to Sustain Us: A Magi Accounts Holiday – Dec 20, 2022
🔹An Embrace To Hearten Me: The Magic Accounts 3.5 – 8//2023
🔹A Ruse To Unchain Us: The Magi Accounts # 4 – Aug 29, 2033
https://www.goodreads.com › showA Purpose That Restores Us by Michele Notaro – Goodreads
Description:
Dark witches here, bloody witches there, evil witches everywhere.
At home, my life is amazing, thanks to my boyfriend, Cosmo Ono-Nai, and his wonderful family that I’ve become a part of. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.
But work is a different story.
All anyone’s talking about is the Red Cloth this, the Red Cloth that. I can’t escape them, and all I really want is to find someplace the witches can’t reach, take my family—my pride—there, and hide them away from the world.
But I can’t. I’ll do everything in my power to protect them, and everyone else, from the building threat. There’s this dread building in my chest about what’s to come, and I have a feeling the Red Cloth is planning something big. I only wish I knew what so I could keep Cos, Jude, and the rest of our family safe.
A Purpose That Restores Us is a 118K novel and the third book in the MM urban fantasy series, The Magi Accounts. It’s recommended to read the series in order because it has an ongoing storyline, but there is NO cliffhanger.
*Intended for adults only. Please read the trigger warnings at the beginning of this novel.
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Unless it’s noted, all books reviewed have been purchased by the reviewer.
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 