Genre: Paranormal, Fantasy, Romance
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Ulysses, Paranormal Romance Guild
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About The Book
Alan
I didn’t think two cars slowing down behind me as I jogged along our country road were a problem. I’m just an ordinary third-grade teacher. Well, also a sorcerer, but I don’t really use my powers. Even when my familiar, Sunny, said, “I don’t like this,” and winged off to fetch my boyfriend, I wasn’t really expecting trouble. But then guys with guns jumped out and “arrested” me. Now I’m locked in a prison hours away from home, my magic is suppressed by a blocking bracelet, and they laugh when I ask to see a lawyer. Scary stuff, but Sunny’s no ordinary bird and Jason will never stop trying to find me. I just hope they arrive in time. I just hope they arrive…
Jason
As a small-town firefighter, I’ve had my share of terrifying moments, but watching Alan be grabbed and driven off in an unmarked car is high on that list. Especially when the agency that supposedly arrested him tells our lawyer they’ve never heard of Alan and have no idea where he is. That’s not an arrest, it’s an abduction.
I’m no superhero and Alan’s friends are two Healers, an elderly and confused sorcerer, and a small bird. But we’re not going to just sit around and let anything happen to the man we all love. And in a stroke of luck, Errante Ame’s Carnival of Mysteries has appeared again. If Errante’s willing to help us, we’ll have a far better chance of rescuing Alan. But if the Carnival’s here, with its power and wild magic, that also means the stakes may be higher than any of us realized.
This sequel to Magic Burning features a kidnapped schoolteacher, a furious boyfriend, a mouthy bird, and a desperate mission to save far more than just one man.
Content warnings for abduction, violence, death and loss.
The Review
A fantastic offering for the Carnival of Mysteries series, Magic Escaping is set in the world of Kaje Harper’s wonderful Necromancer series. This is a sequel to the Magic Burning book from last season, and in it Errante Ame’s carnival plays an important role. Harper’s world is one where magic users and humans (as they’re called) maintain a somewhat fraught relationship. Although the setting is more than fifty years later than the one in which her Necromancer books take place, some of her characters make an appearance. The catalyst for the story is the abduction of schoolteacher Alan Hiranchai by a group of men claiming to be Homeland Security. Even with all the magic/non-magic tensions, this is unusual and alarming.
Alan’s boyfriend, firefighter Jason Miller, is tipped off by Alan’s familiar, a small bright-colored parrot named Sunny. Together they gather their friends to try and figure out a way to rescue Alan, and to find out why the government is suddenly kidnaping sorcerers.
As in the Necromancer books, the story here is fast-paced and very well written. The consistent thrum of anxiety comes from the fact that Alan’s friends are not powerful, or important, either in the magical world or the human world. Their sense of confusion and helplessness apparently draws the attention of the Carnival and its debonair owner, who already knows Alan and Jason. We get an extended glimpse of Errante Ame—with all the attendant speculation as to who, or what, he really is.
The Carnival is used to great effect here, and we are meant to understand (as we have throughout the series) that its existence implies much more than simply a place for magical fun. The Carnival has purpose, but it cannot intervene—it can only guide. Harper goes a little out on a limb here, suggesting that Errante himself might just be something bigger than any wizard on earth.
I was riveted by the narrative from the start; moved to laughter a good deal, and to tears at least once. It’s a special addition to this marvelous series.
Five stars.
The Reviewer
Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave It to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale, and was trained to be a museum curator at the University of Delaware. A curator since 1980, Ulysses has never stopped writing fiction for the sheer pleasure of it. He created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel to Desmond, is his second novel.
Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of over 41 years and their two almost-grown children.
By the way, the name Ulysses was not his parents’ idea of a joke: he is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant, and his mother was the President’s last living great-grandchild. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant’s Tomb in New York City.
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