3.5 out of 5 stars

Ebook. 67 pages. Published January 1st 2021 by JCP Books

Blurb:

A magical bureaucrat is desperate to prove he’s more than just a paper-pusher and win a mysterious shopkeeper’s heart.

Likes:

• Unique magical world.
• Most of my questions got answered.
• Casey’s solution to the lack of snow.
• How Azure’s magic works.
• Casey is nice.

Dislikes:

• Casey is a doormat.
• So many questions.
• How does nobody remember what causes magic to really work?
• The many questions took forever to be answered, and it got annoying.
• Blurb doesn’t reveal much about the story.
• Not much time spent on the romance.

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Every once in a while I’ll come across a short story that could have easily been turned into a longer work. This is one of those stories. The blurb didn’t offer much, so I was expecting a very typical magical society. What I got was something unique and different.

The way the magical world was set up is the part of the story that stands out the most. Casey’s mom actually says, “we both know magic is a dying art” and encourages him to be a plumber. Because magic isn’t something that people can just use. They need a special object. And those objects are becoming harder to find and less powerful.

No one seems to remember how or why magic really works. The story is framed in a way that makes people seem selfish and greedy. It definitely felt like an allegory to how humans pursue money at the expense of things that are more important. But it also brought up a lot of questions. Like why people don’t remember the truth of how magic works.

Casey was likeable because of his idealism. He was also a little annoying because he was a doormat. No explanation was made for why he never stood up for himself. His boss was a corrupt creep. The Agency seemed like a bureaucratic nightmare filled with self-centered people. The only reason he didn’t quit was because it was the only way for him to have access to a magical object. An explanation that felt a little thin, especially given how unhappy he seemed with his job.

Azure was interesting, mostly due to the mystery that surrounded him. So much about him and his people could have easily been expanded on to make a much longer story. I’m glad all of my questions eventually got answered, but there was a time about halfway through the story that I had more questions than answers. That’s when I began to get annoyed with everything being shrouded in mystery and just wanted straight talk.

The romance was fine. Insta-lust and some flirting. Then a time jump to them being together. It worked for the story, but wasn’t what I was hoping for. I wanted more time spent on the romance.

I did like the paragraph after the story explaining how the story began with two words scribbled on a post-it note. I liked the creativity and uniqueness of the story. If that creativity is evident in Price’s other, longer works, I’ll definitely pick something up.