By Magic Beguiled by Maggie Shayne

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Title: By Magic Beguiled
Author: Maggie Shayne
Series: Fairies of Rush #1
Published by: Indie
Release Date: May 1, 1996
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 325
Genres: Romance, Contemporary Fantasy, Fantasy Romance
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 Backlist Reader Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 COYER Chapter 3
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo
My rating:

Blurb:

*Originally titled Fairytale.

A little boy’s haven…

As a child Adam found respite from his father’s cruelty in the woods around their home. During one of his forest adventures, he crawled through tunnel and emerged into another world, a magical world, where a beautiful fairy child splashes in an enchanted pool.

It was just imagination…

Or so Adam tells himself as an adult. Until he finds a painting of that same crystal-strewn glade, that same glistening pool, the same mysterious girl splashing in its waters.

That painting becomes his most cherished possession.

Brigit thinks she knows who she is…

A fire razed the orphanage where she lived. But a homeless man saved her, and he saved the book that had been left on its doorstep with her.

She and Raze have been family to each other ever since.

Brigit can paint anything she sees precisely, and she uses her gift to get her and Raze off the streets when he gets too old and too sick to survive that way anymore.

The wrong people find out about her ability, though, and Raze is kidnapped. To get him back, Brigit must get close enough to Adam to copy his painting, switch them, and deliver the original to the kidnapper.

But it’s not just a painting…

It’s the key to Brigit’s secret past, her connection to the enchanted land Adam discovered as a boy, and a message from a twin sister she never knew she had pointing the way to her destiny.

My Review:

ORIGINAL REVIEW:
4 stars — View Spoiler »OK, I totally fell for it…I honestly believed they were going to be parted, and was crying and crying in the middle of the Miami airport. I think it’s b/c I knew it was a series, but didn’t know what kind of series it was, so figured maybe the happy ending would be in another book later on. Either way, so glad Bridget and Adam could be together….will definitely be looking for the next books in the series. « Hide Spoiler

ON REREAD:
3.5 stars — Since this was one of my earliest indie Kindle reads, I really wasn’t sure how it was going to be rereading it over a decade later.  And while I definitely didn’t get as sucked in or emotionally invested, it actually wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.  I can definitely see reading Bridin’s book, though I doubt I will continue on with the series (which is a bummer, b/c I thought this was just a duology, and I’d be finishing the series with book 2).

Adam was an okay hero.  He was a bit too cynical for me, not that I didn’t understand how he got that way, but it just was a bit too much up and down in his moods at times for me.  Brigit was about the same.  I enjoyed her magical ways, but she was a bit stuck in her own mire of who she thought she was (a bad person).  It made for some frustrating characters to watch, but not unlikeable.

I was on the fence about their romance.  Parts were great, but there was also such a bit feeling of enchantment to it, that I couldn’t help but wonder if they would have been drawn to one another on their own, without the magic.  There was also a bit of dub con in one steamy scene that I was on the fence about too, so something to watch for if that’s a HUGE no box for you.

So yeah.  I enjoyed my read, but I wasn’t blown away.  And maybe because I’d read my previous review before starting, I wasn’t as emotionally invested by the time the end came.  I’m still curious to read Bridin’s story, since I already have it.