Book Review: Dime Store Magic

I absolutely adored Dime Store Magic. While we are still in Kelley Armstrong’s The Women of the Otherworld series, the narrator is no longer Elena. Paige Winterbourne, whom we met in Stolen, gets to take center stage and tell her story. It picks up shortly after Stolen left off. On the first read-through of this book, I had trouble getting into it. I had trouble with Paige, to be honest. I was used to Elena, and Paige had such a different voice. Couple that with the fact that I wasn’t a fan of Paige’s in Stolen.

But once I got into it, I found that Paige is very different than when we saw her through Elena’s eyes. So if you have trouble getting into it, keep going. ;) I found that I had a lot in common with Paige, including a crush on her love-interest, Lucas Cortez. She’s young, but she’s smart and ambitious and strong.

As a pagan, I love reading books about witches, but I also do so with trepidation. I’ve read books that have offended me, and I’ve read others that have some amazingly accurate details. Paige is a witch, a full-blooded supernatural… which is nothing like the pagan religion. However, I have to admit that I was a bit miffed by the scene with the wiccan girls, but I quickly got over it.

Dime Store Magic is a fantastic book. I love the expansion of Kelley’s Otherworld. Look for my review of Industrial Magic coming soon.

Original US cover

Synopsis:

Forget the cackling green hag in The Wizard of Oz, forget Samantha from Bewitched. Real witches are nothing, NOTHING like this. For years real witches have hidden their powers, afraid of being persecuted. They have integrated so well into the community, you could have a witch living right next door and never know about it. Take Paige, for instance, whom we first met in Kelley Armstrong’s novel Stolen. Just an ordinary twenty-something who runs her own website design company, worries about her weight and wonders if she’ll ever find a boyfriend. Okay, so she’s leader of the American Coven and guardian of Savannah, the teenage daughter of a black witch. Really, life is ordinary. But then a telekinetic half-demon, Leah O’Donnell, shows up to fight for custody of Savannah. And although Paige is ready for her, she’s not quite so prepared for the team of supernaturals that Leah brings with her, including a powerful sorcerer who claims to be Savannah’s father.

When all hell breaks loose -- literally -- and Paige is accused of witchcraft, Satanism and murder, the Coven, fearing exposure, abandons her. Cut off from her friends, Paige is forced against her better judgment to accept the help of a young sorcerer lawyer. And she quickly comes to realize that keeping Savannah could mean losing everything else.

Breathtakingly thrilling, hip and funny, this new novel is another page-turning triumph from an author who is going from strength to strength.