I received a copy through NetGalley in exchange for review.

4.5
So this one was a really original set up, and world. It was really well thought out, had two great, independent female main characters. For whom things don't go as originally planned, but they won't allow family or society or stupid male wizards to make the decisions about how their lives should be lived.

Onna's is brilliant at numbers and magical perimeters, she's spent most of her life preparing for the hope that she can get into the big wizard university. But they're horribly sexist and classist. As she isn't descended from a headsman family ( descended from trolls) and from a poor rather unknown town only known for making pencil erasers. Her dream becomes a rather difficult thing to pull off.

Several very interesting countries are built up, one is very religious and uptight (Daesland)- who pride themselves on mimicking the cultures and appearance of Trolls, extra bonus if you can call yourself descended from them, or one of the original families. But they also have a very open policy on sexuality. Which was incredibly refreshing. Hexos is a melting pot of different cultures and places, and they have the greatest wizard in the world there, called The Great Lord Mage, much less uptight and open.

Tsira is a Troll, her mother is a Reig - a head of a troll clan (Reigs can be both men and women), those that join their clans are Vahns- (both men and women) who are taken in by the Reig) - again completely open in sexuality. The Trolls have a really interesting dynamics. Although human- troll relationships are still somewhat unconventional (even with Daeslandic people having Troll descent)
Tsira has left her clan, against their wishes because she wants to remain a Reig, and lives alone rather unconventionally. Her life changes when she finds an unconscious defected solider half frozen in the snow.

The writing was interesting, switching between Onna's Pov and Tsira's pov, I promise you they will meet in the middle of the journey and help each other. I liked them for being so forthright with their wishes, and constantly putting themselves forward for what they wanted. It's not to say they didn't have help a long the way, but their journeys were propelled by their own will and merit.

The book is a bit dense and info heavy because it's so complex, but you'll find real, well written characters, with zero hero complexes, no fancy hero dudes fixing everything. No chosen ones.
Just two smart intelligent women making their way through the world.

Onna has always been gifted with math and magic. Her ability to write the parameters of a spell surpasses everyone else’s. Yet she’s always been looked down upon, as people don’t think she’s as capable as the male wizards she competes against.

Jeckran is a soldier, trying to track down the trolls that have murdered some humans. But when he runs away and nearly dies, he’s found by Tsira, a half-troll, who nurses him back to health and then befriends him.

Troll and human relations are struggling as violence between both races is increasing. Trolls have been getting murdered, and nobody knows who is behind it. Tsira, Onna, and Jeckran will have to work together to solve the mystery, and hopefully bring peace back to their world.

I got a free advanced reading copy of Unnatural Magic in exchange for an honest review.

Unnatural Magic is a debut fantasy novel by C.M. Waggoner. It follows a story that might seem small in scope: a mystery to solve, but this story has repercussions through the entire world that Waggoner has created for her readers.

The first thing that caught my attention about this book was the magic system in it. Rather than magic being something extremely fantastical, as it is in most fantasy novels, Waggoner brings it down to earth, anchoring it in math and “parameters,” and practically turning her wizards into scientists/mathematicians who use numbers to bring magic to life around them. It was so cleverly done, and I’ve never seen a use of magic quite like this, and I enjoyed reading about how Onna used it and how she reasoned through different uses of her ability. This system also made Onna into a woman in STEM, which is something I always love to see in a book. And a woman in STEM who also has magic? Brilliant!

Another big part of this book was the society depicted. Waggoner did a great job of showing several societies in this book, all of them different and distinct. One in particular stands out: the troll society. It’s the kind of book that goes deeply into many aspects of these societies without making the reader feel bogged down. It was really well done, I thought. I learned so much about this world, and I was pretty impressed by how the knowledge of these magical societies intermingled and became a huge part of the central plot.

And while the societies, especially the troll society, were fleshed out, I often felt like the trolls themselves weren’t well described. We got customs, knowledge, personalities, but none of the physical descriptions. It was definitely after the 50% mark of the book when I was finally able to form a vague image of Tsira in my head, although I would have liked something much sooner. Much much sooner. I get that authors don’t often want to be like, “this character looked in the mirror and saw themselves and this is what they looked like,” but not knowing what a character looked like for most of the novel annoyed me more than a little.

Another thing I should warn you about is that while Jeck and Tsira start hanging out in the very first chapters, they don’t meet Onna until about 85% of the book. So you’ll have to be patient if you’re waiting for them to meet and catch the killer.

Speaking of characters, while I did like the main characters, Loga, a secondary one, quickly grew to be my absolute favorite. I loved that he became such a prevalent part of the book, as his charismatic self took over every page his name was on. It was amazing. He was funny, flirty, and brilliant. I’d read a whole book with just him, honestly. And his relationship with Onna was also perfect, especially how she began to pick up some of his sass and reflect it back at him. It was excellent.

Tsira and Jeck also had an amazing relationship, where I not only bought their romance but shipped them together. They were just so great together, and they complemented each other perfectly. Waggoner did good character work with them.

The book was very character-centric, I will say that. The plot sort of simmers in the background for a very large part of the book, allowing the characters to take center stage. This makes it a bit of a slower novel than most, but the character work was compelling enough to keep me reading. There were only a few moments where the characters, well, broke character. But otherwise they were really well done.

As for the general plot, once it gets going (far into the novel), it certainly picks up, although I have to say I called who the killer was fairly early. And in the end, I think all the threads were tied up a little too neatly, although I still enjoyed how it came about.

Unnatural Magic did some marvelous work on the characters and the societies depicted, although the plot was lacking, but I still enjoyed the book.

Unnatural Magic will be released this November 5. You can pre-order it from Ace here.

"Onna can write the parameters of a spell faster than any of the young men in her village school. But despite her incredible abilities, she’s denied a place at the nation’s premier arcane academy. Undaunted, she sails to the bustling city-state of Hexos, hoping to find a place at a university where they don’t think there’s anything untoward about providing a woman with a magical education. But as soon as Onna arrives, she’s drawn into the mysterious murder of four trolls.

Tsira is a troll who never quite fit into her clan, despite being the leader’s daughter. She decides to strike out on her own and look for work in a human city, but on her way she stumbles upon the body of a half-dead human soldier in the snow. As she slowly nurses him back to health, an unlikely bond forms between them, one that is tested when an unknown mage makes an attempt on Tsira’s life. Soon, unbeknownst to each other, Onna and Tsira both begin devoting their considerable talents to finding out who is targeting trolls, before their homeland is torn apart..."

It's like a sweet mashup of several of my favorite Terry Pratchett series.

Easily likeable, relatable, smartly-developed characters, lots of magic, super powers plus amazing girl power, intriguing, hooking plot, entertaining, smart, different and attention capturing writing and a great start as a debut author! As a summary: I enjoyed it, I liked it, without thinking a second giving my four stars.

Fantasy is a risky genre because there is so many YA fantasy books have been releasing and there is a tough, merciless competition between the books. There are so many PR campaigns and advertisements on the social media talking about those books and their blurbs to seek your attention to pre-order them immediately.
Especially so many successful and reputational authors release their new series and you expect too much from them but you may see some most anticipated books turn into big disappointments and some indie, new authors’ debut novels may turn into amazing hits.

This book is not a big hit but it is fresh, different approach with simple, entertaining way of story-telling, at some parts the pacing is getting slower but at the end with easily expectable twists, pacing is getting faster and action parts get the control of the book.

Best thing about the book: Simple, clear not so complicating story with less but strong characters: Onna is a gifted and smart girl attends to magic school and discovers her more secret powers, finds herself to solve troll murders teaming up with Tsira, king’s daughter who is having hard time to find her identity and adapt her family life.
Surprisingly I enjoyed Tsira and Jeckran’s connection ( troll and human close relationship, but trust me you root for them)
It’s a good book to get lost in magical world to get away from your daily stressful life and let the characters give you quick ride at the different kind of universes. Last quarter of the book is really fast paced, even haphazard and sudden ending makes your head spin because you got used to spend time and connect with the characters so I wished I could read more about their stories.

As I admitted before it is above the average, different, original book with witty, riveting, not unputdownable but there is no reason to put down or stop reading kind of enjoyable journey. I wish I can read more upcoming works of this brilliant writer.

Special thanks to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group to share this fascinating ARC COPY in exchange my honest review. I always enjoy to discover new writers and their brand new amazing works.

**Review will be posted to my blog http://pastmidnight.home.blog on November 4, 2019**

Thank you to ACE and Netgalley for giving me an opportunity to read this eARC.

My reason for requesting this on NetGalley was first and foremost the cover. I love it and then the synopsis mentioned magic and trolls? Well it definitely piqued my curiosity!

But when I started this book I thought maybe I had made a mistake and I wasn’t sure I would be interested in even finishing this book. I thought okay, a girl who is trying to get into a school with mostly boys…nothing new there. I put it aside for a few weeks and finally came back to it and wow, I did not stop! Though this story starts off with a teenage girl named Onna – this is not a young adult novel. It has cursing and lots of sexual themes exploring a romance between a troll and a human male. Yes there is troll sex. 😲

There are two main characters in this story. Onna, is a seventeen year old genius wizard and it’s rare for a girl to exhibit these traits. She is trying to get into a school to further her studies but her gender works against her, no matter how smart she is. Tsira is a troll, who is half human, but in her troll community she is too small, and not considered good looking among her people. She leaves her clan to make her own living, earning her own money but Tsira is also conflicted with her cultural rules about begetting a clan.

Though their paths and lives are different there is one thing Onna and Tsira have in common, they are trying to figure out who is the serial killer on the loose targeting trolls.

The world building in Unnatural Magic is so unique! I love how smart Onna is even though at times I didn’t understand parameter spells – it’s basically complicated math, enough said on that. She’s smart! She thinks out of the box and Onna doesn’t give up, which I love about her.

The most fascinating part of the story has to be about the trolls. It was so interesting to learn about their customer and way of life. Females (and some with male parts) ruled the clans! Tsira’s vahn (which I didn’t totally understand right away), vahn being her “wife” but a male wife – in her case, a human male, was totally the submissive one in the relationship. Tsira and Jeckran’s romance is different and unconventional – Tsira is very masculine, and 10 feet tall! So just trying to imagine how they managed to do the deed was…interesting! 🤔 But hey they managed it! Anyway there is a lot to learn about troll life. I was learning along with Jeckran (Tsira’s vahn). In this world for the most part trolls and humans lived together side by side peacefully until the murders occur. Then we start to see how some humans resent trolls and their magic.

There are other colorful characters in this story, one of my favorites being the Lord Mage, Loga, of Hexos. Onna becomes his apprentice and he is quite humorous and flamboyant, I enjoyed his fun personality!

As for the mystery of the troll murderer, I did have my suspicions and I was right. Onna, Loga, Tsira and Jeckran made a great team together hunting down the killer. This book really had a bit of everything and it pushed my imagination in ways I didn’t expect! It has a happily ever after ending as well but also leaves me wondering what will happen to these characters? Will Tsira and Jeckran be okay? The author did a great job of making me care for these characters. 💕

This is a fantastic debut and I hope to read more from this author! Unnatural Magic is an unforgettable fantasy story full of complicated magic, humor, adventure, mystery and romance.

I’ll admit this wasn’t anything like I was expecting, but in a good way!
I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything like this before. It was a very imaginative storyline!

In this book, we follow parallel storylines of two very different women:

Tsira is a half-troll who has left her clan to do some soul searching after struggling to feel like she had a place or could really ever conform to their traditions.
She’s truly a loner at this point, living in a cave instead of society, preferring to be left alone.

Until one night, she stumbles upon a (human) man near death in the snow named Jeckran and decides to save him. This changes both of their lives in ways they never could have imagined.

Onna is a fresh, innocent young (and EXTREMELY smart) wizard who strives to go far academically, but is devastated when she’s rejected because she’s a girl.
This turns out to be a blessing in disguise, because it sends her life on a trajectory with even grander things than she ever thought possible.

In this world, trolls and humans are very different, of course. However, unlike the tales we are accustomed to hearing, trolls aren’t evil and gross in this one.
In fact, they are very peaceful, and their traditions and customs are quite interesting, as it is basically a role-reversal of what we are familiar with. They have a female-led society, and it’s pretty entertaining at times.

Trolls and humans have existed peacefully forever until suddenly a rash of murders start happening.
Trolls are getting viciously murdered by wizards.

Both Tsira and Onna’s lives are impacted by these murders in different ways, but they both have the same goal: to catch the killer. Eventually, fate has their paths crossing just in time for them to come together and solve the mystery before it’s too late.

I absolutely loved the dynamic between Tsira and Jeckran the most.
She is something else! Crass, masculine, blunt, SPICY.
Jeckran and her spar back and forth, but their personalities complement each other so perfectly it’s almost like two puzzle pieces being fit together.

All of the characters were FULL of personality, and they became quite endearing.

As for the book itself, it’s got a bit of everything:
Magic, adventure, mystery, humor, and even some very heart warming moments.

I hope there’s another one in the works! I’d love to revisit these characters in the future!!

Special thanks to the publisher and netgalley for providing me with a copy for review.
All opinions are my own

This review will be posted on here and goodreads. As it gets closer to publication, I’ll feature it on my blog and Instagram.

Woooooow. I absolutely devoured this book. It had me laughing, sharing little tidbits with my friends. It was such an enjoyable and engaging read compared to what I’ve read lately.
The premise and world building and characterization were all amazing. The book itself showcased many different places, people, and cultures as well as languages and customs so it was thoroughly planned and well executed.
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a single book with a race of trolls not considered evil! Troll culture! Troll cuisine!
At first the point of view changing confused me because it felt like after the beginning with Onna, we forgot about her for a little bit, but the relationship with Tsira and her “little vahn” was so exciting and entertaining to read and watch grow (and had me snickering and dying of laughter at parts) and I’m definitely going to recommend this when it comes out at my store.
Probably one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in awhile. Definitely am thanking Netgalley and the publishers for this opportunity to read it.

Unnatural Magic by C. M. Waggoner, an interesting storyline, of trolls and humans, where Trolls are the ones who know Magic and rule in the cities.

This book was received as an ARC from Berkley Publishing Group - Ace in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

My expectations were unclear just from reading the description of this book. I thought the book was going to be like the movie Practical Magic in using gifted talents to serve the good but Unnatural Magic had a different approach. Unnatural Magic tells the story of Tsira and Onna. Onna is a young girl who attends magic school and finds that she is gifted with these mysterious powers that lead her to a murder of trolls and there she meets Tsira, the king's daughter who never seemed to find her way with her troll familiy and she and Onna team up and use their talents to discover the journey of finding who they were meant to be. This book reminded me also of Frozen and the bond the trolls and Kristoff had. The story was unique and cutting edge enough that our teen book club will enjoy this book very much.

We will consider adding this title to our Sci-Fi/Fantasy collection at the library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

This book gave me so much more than I was expecting. Two stories, two amazing female leads, and two completely different adventures but it all comes together to make one amazing read. As one might expect, trolls and humans/wizards are very different species but live in a world together in mostly harmony until Trolls start getting murdered by wizards.

Tsira is a half-Troll who goes out on her own to prove her worth to her clan. She saves a man named Jeckran and their relationship blooms into more than just a friendship. Onna is a gifted and talented wizard but as a female she is held back from reaching her full potential. With the support of her family and her determination to achieve her goals she gets farther than she ever imaged. Tsira is blunt and a little foul mouth. Onna is polite, dutiful, and doesn’t go against society rules. But they have more in common than they might think, and they are both determined to bring justice to the victims and put an end to the murders.

This book was wonderfully written and incredibly unique. I really enjoyed the personalities of each of the characters. I also love a book with multiple POV’s.

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and a few days later I was approved to read it through Netgalley so I would like to thank the publisher, Goodreads, and Netgalley for allowing me to read this book for an honest review.

I can not tell you how much I enjoyed this book. I loved all the characters, the magic, and how their stories intertwined! This is one of those books that you will not want to put down, and when it is over you will be sad that it ended.

I love fantasy books that treat something we've all heard of (like the trolls in this book) as something way more central to the world. I enjoyed learning about trolls - the stereotypes about their population, as well as which perceptions held true and why, vs those that had been made up.

I also enjoyed the portrayal of magic as a field of study and career. The author presented a fascinating world centered around two populations that only the author could claim to be an expert on. I hope there are more books in this series, as it's easy to imagine the stories of the characters going further than they did in this book.

Overall, I'd give Unnatural Magic 4 out of 5 stars. While it took me a while to get fully sucked into the book, I think the level of detail that slowed me down was necessary to the later development of this book and any that follow it.

Thank you Net Galley for the ARC for my honest Review

To be honest, I struggled with this book at the beginning, it really didn't capture my attention at all. I was ready for more than it gave me. But as the story unravelled I started to enjoy it more and more.

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.

This really want my cup of tea so I would rate it 3/5 stars. However I can see this appealing to a wide teen/YA audience and found much of it original and intriguing, hence 4/5.

I was prepare for Onna’s story of bright young person coming into magical power against odds. I wasn’t prepare for Tsira and Jeckran’s story which is actually the majority of the book. I was pleasantly surprised that the book was about trolls...(teaches me to judge a book by its cover). My knowledge of trolls comes from playing WoW, so it was fun to learn the racial and societal details.

This book started off strong but when it switched to another character I had a difficult time (initially ) staying invested. The three points of view follow two different storylines that don't really merge until fairly late in the book. That aside, the story was very interesting, the world building enjoyable and believable, and the conclusion satisfying.

Unnatural Magic reads less like a novel and more like an HBO miniseries exploring a robust fantasy world through the eyes of several characters (I would argue that "Pink" should get equal billing to Onna and Tsira). The specific stories of each character quickly take a backseat to the world development itself and, in particular, the way the world's different cultures, races, and religions interact. It's not quite clear why the title "Unnatural Magic" was selected, given no one but one sect of particularly conservative religious group have any sense that magic should be gendered and even that belief is, at the start of the novel, rapidly being replaced with more egalitarian beliefs. I appreciate that the author appears to be trying to trouble understandings of gender roles and sex binaries, but ultimately they tend to shore up the binary model rather than explode it (genitalia is broadly not seen a indicative of gender and sexuality is seen as fluid, but nearly all the cultures have extremely segregated understanding of gender with only two complementary groupings). I'd happily read more set in Waggoner's world, but I fear this book might suffer from poor PR handling -- what readers will be getting is not what is being advertised, which is likely to result in negative reviews from a frustrated audience.

I'm not going to lie, this was a tough book for me to get through. I thought I was going to shelve it closer to the beginning and had a hard time investing myself in the story. I'm not sure if it was the long build-up of the world and its magic, perhaps simply not being in right frame of mind for it, or if it was the writing style itself -- which can't be it because, despite not getting behind all of the previous raving reviews of this story, I admit that Waggoner has a beautiful, almost lyrical, command of craft. One thing that stuck out for me was some of the profanity. I certainly tend to have a bit of a potty mouth, but when it comes to writing, I feel it sometimes takes away from my experience as the reader. I only bring this up because Waggoner does such a fantastic job writing banter and witty dialogue between the more unrefined characters. In many places where profanity is used, it just seemed unnecessary when things could have been said in more creative ways. But that's personal preference, of course. 

Nevertheless, this truly is a story I don't think has been written before. 'A' for creativity, talent, and passion for the characters, setting, and plot that Waggoner has obviously put an insurmountable amount of time into. It is apparent that a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into creating something that will easily stand out within its genre. Tsira is a breath of fresh air in the fantasy world. (And, for fun, I'd like a pronunciation guide for the name Fyllemwydmesura please.)

Really enjoyed this book. I would have given it 5 stars, but it suffered from a few grammatical and misspellings, which always annoy me. It needed a bit more editing time. That said, the world-building, characters, and dialogue were very strong. I'd love to read more in this world.

Fair warning: The world building took awhile - I was easily 20% done before i felt remotely invested. But. Once you get in you won't want to leave.

#NetGalley
#UnnaturalMagic
A wonderful, imaginative novel with amazingly detailed characters. A debut author, who clearly has a talent for writing, the fantasy is fun, adventurous, and has a fast-paced plot. More please! Must read!
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin publishing for the opportunity to read and review an E-arc copy of Unnatural Magic.