The Temptation of Magic
Author: Megan Scott
Series: Empyreal #1
Genre: Fantasy | Romantasy | Urban Fantasy | Dark Academia
Format: eARC
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ — 3.5/5
Synopsis
Nicole Palmer and her family have spent years hiding from The Wake, the powerful organization that governs the supernatural world.
Nicole and her brother Dylan are Empyreals, supernatural beings with abilities that make them incredibly valuable, and incredibly vulnerable should The Wake discover what they are. Nicole already knows the consequences. Her mother didn't survive them.
Believing a collection of supernatural artwork may contain a message her mother left behind, Nicole finally gets the opportunity to study it.
Unfortunately, she's not the only Empyreal there.
Kyan McCarter is one of The Wake's best hunters, sent to track a dangerous supernatural creature. When a painting connected to the investigation disappears, Nicole and Kyan are forced to work together.
Nicole needs answers.
She also needs Kyan to never discover what she really is.
Falling for him definitely isn't going to make either of those things easier.
My Thoughts
The Temptation of Magic had a really interesting concept, but I think this ended up being one of those books where I liked the ideas more than I loved the execution.
Nicole Palmer and her family have spent years hiding after the death of her mother.
Nicole and her brother Dylan are Empyreals, powerful supernatural beings who absolutely do NOT want The Wake discovering what they are. The Wake controls the supernatural world, and Nicole knows exactly what can happen if they discover an Empyreal outside their control.
After all, her mother didn't survive them.
Nicole believes that studying a collection of supernatural artwork might finally help her uncover a message her mother left behind, but naturally nothing can ever be that simple...
Enter Kyan McCarter.
Kyan is an Empyreal working for The Wake and one of their best hunters.
In other words, precisely the person Nicole should stay approximately seventeen countries away from.
So... obviously they end up working together.
Kyan is hunting a dangerous supernatural creature, a painting connected to their investigation disappears, and Nicole finds herself increasingly involved while desperately trying to make sure Kyan never discovers what she really is.
Because falling for the man who might literally be ordered to hunt you down?
Excellent decision-making all around.
I really liked the premise here. The combination of supernatural creatures, mythology, art, hidden messages, and an organization controlling the supernatural population had so much potential.
I especially enjoyed the idea of Nicole searching for answers left behind by her mother through artwork. It gave the fantasy mystery something a little different, and that was one of the elements I wanted to explore even further.
Nicole and Kyan also had an interesting dynamic, particularly because of the enormous secret sitting between them. She's hiding exactly what she is while getting closer to someone whose entire existence makes him incredibly dangerous to her.
Unfortunately, I never became completely invested.
The beginning took me a while to settle into, and there were moments when I wanted more clarity from the worldbuilding, particularly around the Empyreals and how everything within the supernatural world actually worked.
For something so central to the story, I sometimes felt like I should've understood them better than I did.
The pacing also felt a little uneven to me. There were interesting things happening with Nicole's family, The Wake, the artwork, and the larger conspiracy, but occasionally the romance seemed to receive more attention than the parts of the fantasy mystery I actually wanted explored further.
That doesn't mean I disliked the romance, I actually enjoyed Nicole and Kyan together, but I would've preferred a slightly different balance between the two.
Final Thoughts
The Temptation of Magic was an okay start to the Empyreal series for me.
The supernatural artwork, Nicole's family history, The Wake, and the Empyreals themselves created an intriguing foundation, and there are still unanswered questions that make me curious about where the larger story could go.
Ultimately, though, this was one of those books where the concept grabbed me more strongly than the execution. I wanted a little more clarity from the worldbuilding, more exploration of the fantasy mystery, and a slightly different balance between that storyline and the romance.
Still, there's plenty of potential here, and Nicole falling for approximately the worst possible person to discover her secret certainly kept things interesting.
Rating: 3.5⭐
ARC Disclaimer
Thank you to HarperCollins Children's Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. All opinions are my own.
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