Published Date: June 4, 2019
Publishing Co.: Tor
Pages: 336
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
I received this copy from the publisher via Netgalley in an exchange for an honest review.
Ivy Gamble is a small time private investigator who deals with mostly, disability fraud and spouse cheating cases. Today, however, the local school of magic has approached her to investigate the death of a teacher, first ruled an accident. The principle of the school suspects that it was actually murder, and she can’t sleep until she gets a second opinion.
Ivy need the money, and the notoriety. The problem is, she’ll have to confront her estranged sister. The sister she’s been jealous of for a lifetime, for getting to be magic while Ivy was just ordinary. It’s not just her sister she’ll have to contend with though, it’s a whole league of people she doesn’t know how to interact with. People born to magic, who use it for such trivial reasons. She’ll have to manage her anger, on top of solving her first murder case.
Sarah Gailey’s strength is definitely in characters and their development. Ivy’s internal struggles are deeply relateable. Her interactions with people she’s uncomfortable with, and her attempts to hide her own magic inability, make for a fascinating look into the human psyche. The plot was fairly straightforward for a murder mystery. Gailey dabbles with a couple of red herrings but in all honestly, I had the mystery figured out far before our awkward PI did.
I’m left wondering, does Rahul give her a chance to explain? We’ll never know though as this is a stand alone novel. Some mysteries never get solved.
cupcakesandmachetes 
This is the first review I’ve seen, I have a copy as well that I’m looking forward to reading. Also I preordered a copy so I could get the pin!
That pin is pretty sweet!
I still haven’t read this author – I need to amend that soon.
Lynn 😀
I would say that I enjoyed American Hippo much for than this. This was still good but not as good.
Man, I’m glad I don’t have llama drama with my siblings like so many book characters do…
I don’t have siblings so I get to skip it altogether! 😛
Nice review! 🙂 The characters sound interesting to read about.
Thanks, it was pretty good. 🙂
It kind of sounds like if Petunia Dursley was a PI and showed her jealousy of her magical sister LIly hehe. I like the idea behind this. That’s a shame it’s just stand alone and you don’t get that answer. Those can be good if they’re meant to leave things up in the air, but still maddening.
It was really the only question and probably wasn’t overly important anyway lol. It IS kind of like Petunia Dursley! Ahahaha!