Reviews of River Magic

I received a copy of the eBook River Magic by J.M. Brown. This is a young adult novel that is part of the False Magic book series. Despite being part of a series, this novel stands on its own just fine. There are excerpts of other books in the series at the end, and they sound just as intriguing as this book was itself.

What sets this book apart is its setting in an altered history. As noted in the book's description, "slavery has been abolished in the United States shortly after the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. The Iroquois Nations fought on the side of the United States instead of the British during the revolution, and the Iroquois have maintained their independence and formed a strong alliance with the United States against the Indians of the western plains and the great powers of Europe who seek to reclaim North America."

The story centers around two young teenage girls, Aimee and Brenda, who are recruited to act as messengers headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. They travel along the river, carrying and delivering top-secret messages and occasionally running into a bout of trouble. Spoiler alert: while the tale ends in apparent tragedy, one of the excerpts alludes to happier endings.

I found this book to be an easy read with a captivating storyline. While I found the re-imagined history to be somewhat confusing and unnecessary, it played a role in shaping the plot of the novel - honestly, history's never been my forte anyway! ;-)

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

River Magic is a story about the journey of two orphan girls, Aimee and Brenda. I wasn’t able to read the first book and so at first I thought that the novel was about supernatural magic. I later learned that the magic in the story is the journey itself. This is quite a new thing for me since I’m not really that fond of historical fiction. When I think of historical fiction I always get the feeling that it would be boring and not really exciting. This novel proved everything I knew of historical fiction to be wrong. I was not bored. In fact, I was intrigued by how two girls their age would manage to survive on their own.