Seduced by Magic [Mass Market Paperback]

A practicing white witch, Copper Ashcroft was casting a circle when her magic clashed with a Darkwolf, a warlock. Flung into Otherworld, Copper is trapped with several very unhappy magical creatures. Only knowing that she is direly needed back home in San Francisco, Copper can only try to break the shield that is surrounding the meadow that has become her prison. While chanting a spell, Copper accidentally brings a Tuatha D'Danann warrior into her prison with her.

Tiernan, along with other Tuatha D'Danann warriors, have been assisting the D'Anu coven to rid the world of the Formorii demons that were trapped for a millenium, but are now free. Not knowing their specific plan, what they do know is that the demons are trying to free Balor, who would unbalance good and evil. When he finds himself imprisoned with Copper Ashcroft, he is at once happy to see her alive and frustrated that he is trapped. From the Earth realm, Copper has been missing for fifteen months. Now all they have to do is free themselves from the meadow and return to San Francisco and the battle that awaits them.

I highly recommend reading Forbidden Magic first. While this can be a stand alone, everything makes much more sense if you read FM first. The battle that began in Forbidden Magic is continued in Seduced by Magic. Cheyenne McCray brings these witches and warriors alive. The reader just gets pulled in so quickly that it is impossible to put this book down. I am really looking forward to the next installment in this series, including seeing what happens to Darkwolf and Junga.

There is a strong basic plot here, and what might be some interesting characters. Unfortunately there is too little difference between "good guys" and "bad guys" in these books. Both sides fornicate as often as possible, and in the crudest ways possible. When you have to go back and check character's names to decide who is doing what and to whom, you start skipping through that part of the book, hoping to get to the real plot. Alas, that received less effort than the sex scenes.

Copper Ashcroft is a witch whose use of grey magic got her kicked out of her former coven, along with her sister, Silver. Now Copper's persistence in using grey magic has landed her-accidentally-in Otherworld, where she tries new spells as often as possible in order to get free, and back home to her sister and the new coven they have formed.

Tiernan is a Tuath D'Danann warrior who is drawn to the picture of Copper her sister has every time he sees it. But he's betrothed to someone, an alliance which will strengthen both families, and Copper has disappeared anyway. When a visit back home uncovers his fiance's affair with another man, he puts off the wedding until he can find a suitable way to end the betrothal, and returns to San Francisco to help expel the Fomorii demons which threaten both the worlds of the Fae and humans.

He is surprised to find himself sucked into the same Otherworld where Copper is trapped, by yet another of her spells gone awry-but he loses no time in seducing Copper, a mutually enjoyable experience. Until Copper finds out he has a fiancé. . .

I very much like what I've read of Cheyenne McCray's work in the past. This book, however, was one I failed to enjoy as much as I have her past works. There was plenty of action, and lots of interesting supernatural elements, but the main characters seemed too lacking in depth, their interactions too rushed, for me to be able to enjoy or believe in their relationship as anything but purely sexual, and it didn't seem as if they respected each other even within that framework.

It wasn't so much Tiernan, since he had good reason not to be faithful to his fiancé, but Copper came across as a bit of a bumbling airhead with a vocabulary lacking the words `moral compass'-even though she got mad at Tiernan for having sex with her, once she found out he was engaged. Shouldn't that be a question a smart person asks BEFORE the horizontal bump & grind? I dunno. *G*

There were aspects of the character that were fun to read-her stubborn use of grey magic had me thinking at first we were going to get a far more fully rounded and determined gal-but once she found out about Tiernan's pseudo-fiancé, she just kind of sank into behavior that was ill-suited to a woman confident enough to veer from the well-traveled paths her art decrees to explore new vistas. This book was by no means horrible: it simply wasn't up to the standard this author is capable of.

With good authors, there's always the bar they set themselves with their former work, and McCray's has always been quite good-and no doubt will continue to be in the future. For many authors, this would be an excellent effort. As measured against McCray's own well-demonstrated talents, it can only be described as a bit below her usual high standard.

Reviewed by Lee M

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