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Review: A Magic Fierce and Bright by Hemant Nayat

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A Magic Fierce and Bright by Hemant Nayat

A Magic Fierce and Bright
Hemant Nayat
Simon & Schuster
Published July 9, 2024

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About A Magic Fierce and Bright

A young technomancer teams up with a handsome thief to save her sister in this propulsive, magic-filled young adult fantasy that is perfect for fans of Gearbreakers and Iron Widow.

Adya wants nothing more than to be left alone. Content to be loyal to no one but herself in the isolated jungles of South India, she dreams only of finding her lost sister, Priya, and making enough money to take care of their family. It’s too bad that her rare ability to wake electric machines—using the magic that wiped them out five centuries ago—also makes her a coveted political pawn. Everyone seems to believe that her technomancy can help them win the endless war for control over the magic’s supernatural source.

These senseless power struggles mean little to Adya. But when her enemies dangle news of her sister before her, she’s all too quick to leap at the chance to bring Priya home—even if it means teaming up with a rakish, disreputable thief in order to do it. With the threat of invasion looming ever larger on the horizon, Adya must reconcile the kind of person she is with the kind of person she wants to be and untangle the web of intrigue, conspiracy, and deceit that threatens to take all of India down with it.

My Review

Once in a while I read a debut novel and come away from it knowing I’ll happily read whatever the author writes next. A Magic Fierce and Bright is one of those debuts.

The story has so many incredible elements. First, I love the unusual magic of the technomancers. In this book, machines have souls, and Adya can sense them. They communicate with her, too. Honestly, there’s one motorcycle that’s quite possibly my favorite character in the whole book. It’s got a great personality and hilarious insults.

I’m also a huge fan of sister stories, so Adya’s quest to find her missing sister absolutely resonated with me. Her relationship with her overly optimistic younger brother is so sweet, and her antagonistic relationship with Dsouza, the boy she refers to as Bad Day made me laugh. (And maybe swoon, a little bit.)

I devoured chapter after chapter of this book, getting lost in its dense jungle and magic-soaked cities. It’s a fantastic adventure with a sliver of romance. I have no idea if it’s a standalone or the beginning of a series, but I will eagerly watch for the next book by this author.

Fans of Flower and Thorn by Rati Mehrotra or The Star-touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi will not want to miss this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Most characters are Indian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used very infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
A brief kiss between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Adya prays to focus her magic. She encounters the spirits of different machines and can repair them using magic. Other kinds of magic exist in India, too. Adya’s mother believed combining them could be incredibly powerful, but Adya believes it’s what got her killed.

The story contains other fantasy characters and creatures like giants, elves, werewolves, and vampires.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. References to torture. A group of mercenaries burn a home to the ground with a woman trapped inside. A powerful gangster executes people who displease him in a cage into which he lowers a spiked platform.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: I Like the Performing Arts… What Jobs Are There? by Steve Martin and Roberto Blefari

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I Like the Performing Arts… What Jobs Are There? (That’s a Job Series)
Steve Martin
Illustrated by Roberto Blefari
Kane Miller
Published August 1, 2022

Kane Miller Website | Bookshop | Goodreads

About I Like the Performing Arts… What Jobs Are There?

Whether they love the spotlight or prefer to be busy behind the scenes, there’s something for everyone in this accessible guide for children who are interested in working in the performing arts. From being an actor to a costume designer, to a special effects artist, readers are taken through a day-in-the-life of 25 workers and shown the different skills and qualities needed for each exciting job.

My Review

When I was little, I dreamed of being a professional ballerina. I took loads of dance classes, and maybe dancing professionally could have been an option if I’d kept at it. I quit when I was fourteen, tired of ballet being my entire world. I’m sure I’m not the only person who had dreams of that sort, especially as a kid. I love that this book allows kids to explore those big dreams by including high-profile performing arts careers like ballet dancer, actor, and pop singer. The book also includes a lot of other careers (with perhaps easier points of entry) in the performing arts industry, like media and entertainment lawyers, camera operators, drama teachers, and choreographers.

For each of the 25 careers profiled, the book provides some information about the educational backgrounds required for the job and takes readers through a detailed busy workday. There’s also a note listing the best and worst parts of the job, which offers a little more insight into each career.

I had a lot of fun looking through the careers in this one with my daughter. Some, we were familiar with, but others we didn’t know much or anything about. She liked being able to pick and choose which careers sounded interesting to her and jumping around the book, which is super easy thanks to the table of contents, which includes a little thumbnail illustration of a person in each career.

This is a great series for middle- or late-elementary readers who want more information about jobs in different fields of interest. The whole series is really cool.

Age Recommendation

For readers eight to twelve.

The cartoony style probably makes this better suited to fourth or fifth-grade level, but the pages have so much information that I think older kids would benefit, too.

Content Summary

Illustrations show a diverse group of people performing different jobs.

Additional Titles in the That’s a Job Series

I Like Space… What Jobs Are There?

I Like Helping People… What Jobs Are There?

I Like Machines… What Jobs Are There?

Titles I Haven’t Reviewed

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.