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So I picked up Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury when looking for comp titles for querying agents. It’s YA, urban fantasy, lots of witches and fun magic system, and some really fascinating grey morality. What’s not to love?
It ultimately isn’t that similar to the project I’m querying, outside of those very broad bases, but it was also an incredibly fast and fascinating read.
Blood Like Magic (which is apparently the first in a series, though I’m mostly fine with it as a standalone given how the plot wraps up) is an incredible debut novel. Hashtag GOALS. It stands out not just for the plot execution, but also for two other big things I rarely see in published urban fantasy: a majority Black cast and culture backdrop, and the very plot-relevant inclusion of near-future technology.
Let’s face it, a lot of mainstream publishing is very white, and a lot of fantasy genres are kind of suffering from Those That Came Before. Dystopian killing games are all The Hunger Games, school boarding stories are all Harry Potter, and I’ll personally never forgive Tolkein (though it’s not actually his fault) for what Lord of the Rings did to the high fantasy genre. A lot of Western fantasy tropes are rooted in racism, too, though that will be a blog post for another day.
The core plot premise is that the main character, Voya, must kill her first love in order to save her family’s magic—so it comes down to love or family/magic/power. Or so you’d think. A lot of books would handle this frivolously, or too lightly, or explode with deus ex machinas, but this book wasn’t afraid to go there. And god, it was great for it.
The center of the book is the Black witch community. Family is vital, but in-fighting, secrets, and refusal to help others is slowly wearing the previously interwoven and friendly community apart. And nowhere does this book let you forget its roots or its backdrop: every mention of food is both mouth-watering and colorful, family remains on center stage the entire time, and almost the entire cast is Black. Primarily Afro-Caribbean, too, though this takes place in Canada—and the major holiday (fictional, as far as my limited research goes) of Caribena is the big deadline for all of the plot going down. Think Carnivale meets Mardi Gras meets Day of the Dead. Food, glitz, dancing, celebrating, and even some dead ancestors returning, just for spice.
Voya, by the very core nature of her personality, is a very indecisive character. So giving her this massive choice is more than just a choice. She has to decide whether to even make the choice at first. There are moments when her indecisiveness are grating, but they always felt true to her character—a teenaged girl given the ultimate responsibility, on top of a really horrible moral choice.
Blood Like Magic takes place in a world where AI helps you navigate social media, genetic testing and modification are available—for the rich and privileged—and you can pull up and search a person on the equivalent of the internet just by looking at them. It’s very Black Mirror-esque, but never feels overbearing. A beta test of a romantic matching (based on genetics) program is how Voya ends up finding who becomes her first love.
But, while the lowkey enemies to lovers trope plays out—they meet rudely, and the love interest, Luc, only gets ruder from there—the story also ultimately explores what love means. And dear readers, this is what I was ultimately hoping for: acknowledgement of different kinds of love (especially in the case of magic).
Mild spoilers for the latter half of the book here, so skip to the next paragraph if you’d like to go in blind! Voya ultimately realizes that there are different kinds of love, primarily her love for her family, so it’s not just a matter of can she commit murder, but can she figure out who to murder to successfully save her family’s magic. I called the supposed twist that her love wasn’t meant to be romantic, but it was dealt with early enough that it wasn’t some late-game twist, and was all the more satisfying for it.
Not only is the concept of love explored in the novel, but also how different people feel it. There is a range of familial love on display—teasing, strained, estranged, distant, confused—but also queerness is addressed multiple times by multiple characters.
There are two main transgender characters, for example! One is the main romantic lead, no less! One trans character is still a big deal in a lot of narratives, so to have two, and have them have very different stories is GREAT. And neither of them have their transness be a surprise or twist at any point. It just is who they are.
Another cousin character has a bad date go worse, and in a moment of frustrated emotion, she confesses that she takes “too long” to emotionally connect with her dates, so she’s often accused of leading them on. Later, she explicitly uses the term demiromantic. I don’t think I have ever seen that anywhere that isn’t in a fanfic. (Granted, I know it’s been done, but not enough!)
So much of the witchy community is queer or queer-leaning, so it’s nice to see it translated into a mainstream, published book. Moreover, there are still common, hurtful, and untrue stereotypes of Black people being somehow more homophobic (and usually played for laughs, no less). Seeing a story so full of love, to the point where it is the plot several times folded over onto itself, celebrate not only Black characters and their culture, but also so many queer characters, is an incredible breath of fresh air. And that is not even getting into the delicious plot.
Without spoiling the ending of the story, I will say that it does not shy away from the decision presented at the opening: sacrifice her first love to save her family’s magic. There may be twists and turns, and different interpretations along the way, but ultimately, it is dealt with, and in a way that is deeply satisfying and not out of nowhere.
I highly recommend Blood Like Magic to anyone who has any kind of passing interest in any modern fantasy genre. It’s great, and apparently will become a series, which is even better.
