“Joining the Guild was only the beginning. Now Jen’s next quest could spell life or death.”
Thank you to the author for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
Guild of Magic is the second book in the NYC Questing Guild series. There is so much that has happened in book one that I was immensely grateful for the summary at the beginning of Guild of Magic. This series runs off the premise of an alternate reality game covering the use of actual alchemy. In book one the main character, Jen, discovers that the quests she’s gone on for the “game” are actually part of a deeper gamble, one that is literally life and death. She gets in deeper, becoming involved in the Guild, the secret organization behind the Quests.
Book two, Guild of Magic, starts out running. There’s no buildup. The entire book is desperate gamble after desperate gamble. I love getting glimpses of just how far down the rabbit hole Jen was willing to go. It’s clear that she’s become addicted to the adrenaline, danger, and yes- magic, that these quests offer. It’s taken over her life at this point and, while it’s not the point of the book, watching her priorities shift along with each new level of mystery was fascinating.
Jen’s far from being a squeaky-clean heroine kind of character. In fact, no one in the book was lawful good, to coin a TTRPG phrase. I tend to love when a character’s morality scale doesn’t quite match everyone else’s, so this cast of characters was a treat. There are some old faces and a few new ones (no spoilers given). None of the characters are particularly likable, but they’re something even better: they’re engrossing. How they interact, what they’re willing to do for the Guild, or more accurately, for their own gain, the lies upon deceits that slowly begin to unravel are what kept me glued to the book.
I particularly enjoyed watching Emma and Jen’s relationship and they both clashed and worked together. Sometimes at the same time. It brought a sense of fun to the book, especially the roles Emma and Jen played while trying to reconnoiter for a quest. I love a good heist, or at least an attempted heist, and Emma and Jen made for massively entertaining thieves.
Guild of Magic is a fast-paced book in a series that is full of puzzles and risky endeavors. If the Mission Impossible franchise was a book series, it might look a little like this. No danger is too great, the reader is always wondering what clues have been hidden just beneath the surface, and there is always the question of who will double-cross who first. I highly recommend this nonstop adrenaline rush.
