Book Reviews

Book Blurb

As if crushin’ on a shifter wasn’t bad enough, I had to go and date one.

A mage and a shifter walk into a bar… No, that’s the whole joke.

Magi and shifters don’t mix, and yet I find myself in a relationship with Cosmo, a lion shifter. And on top of that, Cosmo, and all his pride members, consider my brothers and me to be a part of their pride. Three magi in a shifter pride. Who would’ve ever thought?

Navigating our connection while trying to figure out what’s going on in the world isn’t easy. Trusting that Cosmo means forever when he says it? Even harder. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned since meeting the Ono-Nais, it’s that taking a risk with my heart will be worth it to be a part of their lives.

Book Review

“There were elemental runes that created the physical component of a spell, and there were action runes that magi used to make the physical components do different things or change shapes.”

 

The excitement, romance, action, suspense, and story building continued in this installment of Michele Notaro’s ‘The Magi Accounts’. I’m crazy about this series as it seems to have everything that I love in an urban fantasy world. The magi, shifters, and even a few humans are some of the best characters I’ve read in a while.

 

Mads and Cosmo are slowly working on their building relationship while continuing to fight Taragorians and constant veil breaches. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take their team long to realize that human witches are behind more and more of these breaches. The witches use blood and sacrifice to gain magical power unlike magi who are born with the ability. And now the witches are kidnapping entire prides of shifters and sacrificing them in order to open breaches, capture Taragorians, and then kill those monsters and using their life force. But to what end?

 

Their team is handling a breach that actually went through a mall filled with humans and shifters alike, when Mads and Jude disobey a direct order from the TRD Director. I would have disobeyed it also as she and Captain Anderson wanted them to release the runes helping to hold the building structure together before all of the shifters inside had been evacuated. Of course, the humans were removed first as they’re the most important. *eye roll* Mads and Jude are not willing to let those people die and they disobey knowing they’ll be facing punishment. Cosmo and the team get a look at what Mads, Jude, and all magi have dealt with their entire lives when Anderson collars them and takes them back to the compound for torture. Punishment is what the humans call it, but it’s really torture of the most horrific kind. The collars the humans use cut each mage off from their magic.

 

“The dickbag met my eyes and reached around my neck with a collar. I tensed because wearing a collar was barbaric, but I tried to hide it from my face so Anderson didn’t get the satisfaction of seeing it. But the second he hooked the clasp, I cried out, unable to stop myself, as pain shot through my entire body. I fell to my knees, coughing and choking on air. It was as if he’d severed my head from my body, as if I’d lost all my limbs at once, as if he’d ripped my heart straight out of my chest. Tears pooled in my eyes of their own accord, my ears were ringing, and my skin felt bruised all over. It was like being hit with the worst flu you could imagine, all at once. The collar cut me off from my magic using magnetic resonance in conjunction with obsidian—a volcanic glass that didn’t sit well with our magic. They could turn the magnetism off and on to allow us to use small bits of magic. That was how they’d controlled my people and got them to fight for them in WWIII.”

 

In order to get his magi, his pride members, back from the compound, Cosmo does the only thing he can think of to do. He finally accepts a seat on the Shifter World Council. The seat his grandfather and father held before him. When they were killed when Cosmo was twelve, he was offered the seat when he turned eighteen, but he refused it as he didn’t want to be involved in politics. Cosmo just wanted to live a good life, take care of his pride, and stay out of politics in any way, shape, or form. But to save Mads and Jude, he accepts a seat, and the SWC backdates the paperwork to show that Madeo, Jude, and Logan are all members of the Ono-Nai pride. Oh, how I loved the look on Anderson’s face when he realized he was going to have to release his “toys” or risk endangering the Great Peace Treaty. Anderson is a true sociopath who began with NHSO as a guard at the compound and he has tortured Mads and Jude many times over for his own sick pleasure.

 

I loved and hated seeing the life Madeo and Jude had before they joined Captain Harriet Gray’s TRD team with the Ono-Nai pride. They are probably the most powerful magi in the world, although Mads scoffs at that when any other magi say such a thing. The number of runes a magi can hold and work at a time indicates their strength level. Most magi can use about eight, strong magi can do fifteen to twenty-two. Well, there were a few times during this story where Mads was holding fifty plus runes at a time and actively working them. For obvious reasons, they’ve never shown the NHSO what they are truly capable of. I can’t wait to see what else happens down the road!

 

‘The Shackles That Hold Us’ was a fantastic read and I was flipping pages so fast I didn’t even want to stop to eat. The Red Cloth, the witches’ covens, are going to be a big part of future storylines and I’m so excited to see where the author takes me next. The pride has gained three new members, tiger shifters whose entire pride was killed by witches, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how Madeo, especially, deals with little kids. Thank you, Michele Notaro, for writing these amazing characters that I look forward to rereading for a long time to come.

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been purchased by the reviewer.

 

Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Novel, 397 pages
Heat Level
Publication Date	07-June-2022
Price	$5.99 ebook, $16.99 paperback
Buy Link	https://www.amazon.com/Shackles-That-Hold-Us-Accounts-ebook/dp/B09QW2J3L7