Review: Elemental Magic by Angela Wallace

Title: Elemental Magic

Author:  Angela Wallace

Publisher:  Self Published

Published:   November 19, 2011

Format: E-book

Pages: 250

Source: Provided by the author

in exchange for an honest review

Read: July 27-30

In A Few Words: Magical, fun, romantic

My Rating: 4  Solid Stars

Goodreads: Add it to your to-read shelf

Goodreads Synopsis:
Aileen Donovan is an oceonographer with magical control over the element of water. While her normal focus is on research and fighting poachers, she's about to go up against the stuff of legends, and that's saying something for a supernatural.


A transport ship is missing and everyone’s eager to get their hands on the cargo. No one knows what exactly it is, but when fragments resembling coral begin to drive local residents insane, Aileen suspects a preternatural source. Whatever is at the bottom of the ocean, a power-hungry alchemist wants it, and releases a sea dragon to eat the competition—literally.


Aileen sees this as an opportunity to win the professional recognition she desires, but keeping secrets is complicated when she’s working with local Coast Guard officer Colin Benson. Her sense of love and duty will be put to the test, and when the tide washes out, it might have been better if that lost ship had stayed lost.

Melissa's Musings:

This is another book I've had for a while that I really wish I had gotten to sooner.

The first thing that caught my attention is the fact that there are two Charmed references within the first two pages. If you're a long time reader here at Melissa's Midnight Musings, you know that I  LOVE Charmed. It's my all time favorite  show. So that set the tone for me, and got me thinking, "this is going to be an awesome book."

I was not disappointed. 

For readers who like supernatural creatures and elements, this story has a little bit of everything. There are elementals, sea dragons, nereids,  vampire mutts, spirits/ghosts, and alchemists. 

I have to admit, I haven't read many stories with elementals before, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I think that the supernatural elements were explained really clearly, and very descriptively, so it was easy to get caught up in that aspect of the story. There are a lot of different types of supernatural beings in the story, and sometimes that can make things confusing, but in this case it was helpful in terms of the world building and helping you become more invested in the story.

 There was one part about the exposition of the supernatural elements that I didn't like, which was the way the author used quotes around certain phrases like "special power." I think she may have just been trying to ease into the subject of the characters having supernatural powers, but I think that it would have been much more powerful just having been stated on it's own, rather than drawing special attention to it with the quotation marks.

There's a lot of action in the story so the pace is fast, but not too fast. There's also a little bit of romance thrown in as well, so it's not just all action all the time. The buildup of the romance between Aileen and Colin is really nicely done. I could really feel for them, and feel them get closer to one another. It definitely wasn't insta-love which I was grateful for. When they finally connect it's almost a bit of a relief in a way, at least for me it was, because I think I was rooting for Colin all along.

The writing flows really well for the most part. There are a few parts of the dialogue that are a bit stiff, but it's nothing so bad as to take away from the story. There are a lot of well placed pop culture references, (in addition to the Charmed references on the first few pages) Sometimes, a lot of pop culture references can be distracting, but that wasn't the case here.  They each add a bit more description or even a chuckle or two to the storyline.

There's one plot point that I was very curious/confused about, and that was why Aileen was so obsessed with always finding her cell phone or knowing where it is. Maybe I didn't read closely enough, but I don't think I ever read why she is always looking for it. A strange thing to be curious about I know, but I can't help it.

I don't want to spoil the ending, but lets just say that this book definitely leaves you curious to know what'll happen for these characters next. I know I'm very curious.

I'd recommend this to anyone who loves reading about magic and supernatural creatures, or who's looking for a fun read.