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geekygraceelyse's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
4.5
“You don’t understand, Gabriel. I can never be free of you. It’s too late. Even if you sent me to the other side of the world, I’d find a way back to you.”
Dark Wizard is the compelling first book in Jeffe Kennedy’s Bonds of Magic Series.
Lord Gabriel Phel is the first person in his family in generations to be born with magic and he wants one thing: to restore his shattered house to its former station in the Convocation’s complex and arcane society. To do this he needs to obtain a familiar to supplement his skills, preferably one who is a highborn daughter who can also become his wife.
Lady Veronica Elal doesn’t have many choices. To her - and her fathers - bitter disappointment, she will never be the powerful wizard she had hoped to become. Instead Nic is relegated to becoming a familiar like her mother, a second-class citizen in the Convocation. Destined to bond with a wizard, her only hope lies in choosing a candidate who she’ll be able to manipulate, but to do that she must take part in the Betrothal Trials. Whichever one of her suitors impregnates her will claim her as a familiar and wife.
But it’s clear to Nic within moments of meeting, that Gabriel isn’t going to be easy to manipulate, and her carefully laid plan is derailed when she discovers she’s pregnant with Gabriel’s child.
Driven by panic and the urge to take control of her life she does the unthinkable: she runs… But she can’t escape her heart.
“You felt something, too,” he murmured. “I think that’s part of why you ran. You were afraid of this powerful thing between us.”
I really liked this book. The blurb didn’t really give much away & I didn’t really know what I was get into, and it make me think that there was going to have a fair bit of heavy up-front world building which made me a little hesitant to read it (my brain doesn’t function so well after doing ECT a few years ago and I struggle with some memory issues which can cause some problems). To be completely honest, if I was going off the blurb alone I don’t know if I would have actually picked this one up, but Jeffe Kennedy is one of my favourite authors and I absolutely adore her Twelve Kingdoms Universe books, so I decided to give Dark Wizard a go and I’m very glad I did.
Despite my concerns, Jeffe Kennedy’s world building is incredibly vivid and compelling, yet easy to understand. By the end of the book I did still have quite a few questions about the Convocation but I think questions I had were to be expected since as a reader, I was discovering a lot of the information about the Convocation at the same time Gabriel was and he still doesn’t have all the answers either.
I found that Dark Wizard seemed to be more of a character driven novel, which isn’t a bad thing as I love character driven books, and the main focus was on Gabriel & Nic and their relationship, and I’m very eager to see how their arc progresses over the series.
I loved Gabriel so much. The blurb makes he seem quite callous, cold, and ruthless but he comes across quite differently in the book itself. He really does wish for a genuine connection with Nic and makes it abundantly clear that he wants her to be happy and retain her freedom. At times he’s darker side comes out, mainly when he’s having to deal with the Convocation, but when it comes to Nic he treats her with a reverence and infatuation that was incredibly endearing.
“It’s just that…” He trailed off, seeing something in her face. “I won’t use you, Nic. Not for sex, not for magic, not for anything. I do want you. Even if you put on those cosmetics and a pretty dress, I couldn’t want you more than I already do… It was foolish of me to try to hide that from you. But wanting you isn’t enough.”
Although in the eyes of the Convocation, and to Nic herself, the power balance between them tips in Gabriel’s favour as the wizard. But Gabriel is almost completely ignorant when it comes to the Convocation, while Nic has been raised & educated within it her entire life, and I found that within their relationship, this evened their dynamic to an extent, maybe even tilting it in Nic’s favour.
I loved Gabriel’s vulnerability throughout the book, not just with Nic but his overall ignorance with how the Convocation works and his unease at what his roll of wizard seemingly requires him to do. It added so much depth to his character and was refreshing to read.
“I am not so comfortable in my skin as you are,” he observed wryly, bending to shuck his pants.
“You’ve clearly had lovers,” she noted, rather touched by his shyness. Or was it another gambit to soften her? “Surely you’ve been naked in front of women before.”
“Yes.” He joined her on the bed before she got a good look at the rest of him. “But I’m chagrined to note that your good opinion seems to matter.”
The Bonds of Magic series is advertised as a Dark Fantasy Romance, and I can see why that’s the case as the way familiar’s are treated within the Convocation is quite dark, and Betrothal Trials are seedy and hardly ensures enthusiastic consent, and while it doesn’t occur on the page, reading Nic’s thoughts about the first few wizard’s she was paired with for the trials was fairly uncomfortable, but the relationship between Gabriel and Nic wasn’t all that dark at all.
I loved the dynamic between them so much that my favourite parts of the book were when they were together, and that Nic – despite her concerns about the Fascination stealing her free will – really didn’t hold back from telling Gabriel exactly what she thought & pushing for what needed to be done when he held back.
Her lips parted, only breath hissing out. “I take it back. You are a fool.”
He grinned at her. “I prefer ‘confident risk-taker.’”
“You seem more like a lazy procrastinator to me,” she taunted. “All talk and no action.”
And in equal measure, I liked that Gabriel was intent on pushing back on the archaic and at times abhorrent way Wizards are expected to use their familiars, despite Nic’s continuous resignation to the ‘status quo’. I also loved how he saw through Nic’s deflection and defences to who she really was.
“You like to pretend that you’re so practical and hard-hearted, but you have a depth of compassion in you, Nic. You feel everything so deeply—probably that’s why you developed such a hard shell. But that shell is a construct, not who you truly are.”
I found Nic to be a very intriguing character and loved getting to unearth more of her personality and strength throughout the novel, and I’m looking forward to getting to read more about her as the series progresses.
She struck him as both sad and angry. Frustrated, perhaps, almost to the point of despair. That, more than anything else, appealed to him about her. He understood frustrated ambition, and the despair that followed close behind.
The world of Dark Wizard was so engaging, and while I felt like a lot of the book focused on Gabriel and Nic’s relationship arc- which isn’t a bad thing at all as I love character driven stories- I’m really looking forward to getting to see how Gabriel and Nic will shake things up within the Convocation and to be able to explore more of this enthralling world and it’s compelling characters in the next book, Bright Familiar which is available now.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pregnancy
Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual violence