Hunted by Magic – Jasmine Walt – 4*

Hunted by magic starts right where Bound by Magic ended.  Iannis is missing and the mages are in an uproar.  The mages don’t want Sunaya’s help finding Iannis.  Instead their bright idea is to arrest her and everyone they think might know/are in/have family in the resistance.  Literally almost everyone shifter/human is taken in by the mages.  Sunaya has to escape from town because she is enemy number one.  All she wants is to find him.  In the last book she exchanges what amounts to a soul stone.  A bit of her soul is put into a necklace that he wears and she has one from him.  Only the wearer can remove it.  This is something she was given and told not to tell anyone else because it is basically an exchange of rings for marriages.  Sunaya escapes town with the help of two friends and they track Iannis down with the necklace.  They find just the necklace and the mages who were with him.  They eventually track him down but he has been enchanted and she has to basically seduce him to force him to remember himself.  It was a little creepy.  The woman who enchanted him doesn’t take kindly to losing her powerful new husband and tries to kill Sunaya and Co.  They escape rescue the mages and then rush to the capital for the vote.  There is a lot that happens in this book.  There is problems in the capital and reasons they wanted Iannis out of the way.

This book was much better than the last one but I didn’t feel like there was much movement in the overarching story.  We are no closer to finding out who the big bad is.  Iannis has hinted at Sunaya’s family is but refuses to tell her anything.  It just seemed like one more plot thwarted by Sunaya and Iannis but let’s not tell you anything new.  Now I have to wait for the next book.

02 Bound by Magic – Jasmine Walt – 4*

This is the sequel to Burned by Magic.  It starts right where the first ended.  Sunaya is being trained by Iannis to control her magic.  He is angry because she still insists on being an enforcer, earning her own money, and living in her own home.  He wants her living at the castle focusing on mage training.  She wants her independence and break from Iannis because she is hoping her attraction for him will go away.  She is trying to find the big backer introduced in the last book.  She is also asked to look into the shifters who have been going missing.  This storyline was a lot more obvious who was behind the missing shifters.  There are some little bits you don’t know but the big details you can figure out very quickly.

I liked this story.  There were some issues like her receiving a warning about trouble with the resistance but doesn’t share it with anyone else.  Though if she had we would have an entirely different book 3 so take it or leave it.  You get a little more information about the people and places in this book that helps with the world building and character development.  Overall an enjoyable book but HATED the cliff hanger ending.

01 Burned by Magic – Jasmine Walt – 5*

Sunaya is half shifter half mage in the city of Solantha.  Mages are in control of everything.  Shifters are considered second class citizens and half/half is outlawed.  Sunaya has hidden her magic.  She has two jobs one as an enforcer and when she can’t get enforcer work she bartends.  While working her night job as a bartender her mentor telepathically calls for her.  She arrives minutes before he dies of silver poisoning.  He tells her there are a number of cases of silver poisoning but no one is looking into them.  She calls in her fellow enforcers and let them know what happened.  They blow her off but she is determined to investigate.  While on another case she exposes her magic and is arrested.  During her trial she is told to appeal directly to the chief mage.  Sunaya believes this will give her a chance to escape but instead is taken almost immediately to the chief mage.  The chief mage takes an interest in her and decides to spare her as long as she is receiving mage training.  The chief mage Iannis is determined to train her but she has a lot of bias against mages.  Sunaya is able to open Iannis’ eyes to what is happening in the city and he does make some changes to help shifters and humans. 

I loved this book so much that I bought and read the next two books in the series.  I am now impatiently waiting for the next book.  Sunaya is a strong woman who has pretty much been on her own since her mother’s death when she was young.  She calls BS with everyone but is very loyal to those she loves.  The story has a nice mix of characters who interact well with each other.  There are just enough curves in the plot to be interesting.