Book 66, 2018

[chez_jae]

Mercy's Magic by P.J. Day

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



On Wednesday night, I completed the ebook Mercy's Magic by PJ Day. It's the first book in the "Mercedes Cruz" series, featuring PI and bruja (witch) Mercy Cruz.

While Mercy has the potential to be a powerful witch, she has been lax about practicing and learning her craft, even though she has a mentor, her Aunt Itzel. Instead, she has been concentrating on building her PI business and being a single mother to 5 year-old Terra. When Mercy's ex comes to her and asks if she can help track down one of his missing workers, she agrees to take the case. Speaking to the missing man's wife leads Mercy to an inconspicuous print shop, where she encounters the presence of a very strong magic practitioner. Further investigation reveals that the print shop is a front for a large counterfeit operation. Mercy involves the police, but they are thwarted by a magical attack. Convinced now that only she can free Javier, Mercy enlists the aid of her friend, who makes a love potion that Mercy can use to bespell the evil warlock. The only problem is, she must ingest it, too. However, Mercy has an antidote, and as long as she takes it soon after ingesting the love potion, she will be immune to its effects, even as her target will continue to fall for her.

Here's where things took a turn for the worse. So, Mercy knows she's out of her depth, and she's clearly terrified of this man. However, once she doctors their drinks with the love potion and they both begin feeling the effects, she doesn't take the antidote! Why? Because she feels that there really is a connection between them. Oh. My. God. Let's think about this, shall we? Mercy knew -- she KNEW -- what the love potion would do, yet she still believed that it was twu wuv? Gag me with a wand. Of course, she spent the night with the evil warlock, where he introduced her to his other wand. Since he released Javier, I guess it was all worth it...? But, now Mercy is still convinced she's in love with the guy, and her friend and her aunt are like, 'You stupid slut!' Okay, not really, but they should have said that to her.

In summary: premise was interesting to begin with, story-telling was good, but editing was not, characterizations were so-so (I only really got a sense of Mercy), and the ending of the story was not satisfactory in my opinion.

Favorite line: But she still found the time to help those without a voice or other means of help.

I'm waffling on this one. I'd like to give it one and a half stars, but I guess I'll go with two:

**