{Review} Making Magic (Books of the Kindling #3) by Donna June Cooper

Posted by Melanie
Release Date: January 20th, 2015
Finished Date: January 31st, 2015

Publishers: Samhain Publishing
Genre: YA, Paranormal, Romance
Source: For Review
Format: EBook

Pages: 305

Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US 

Sticks and stones may threaten bones, but her words can conquer both body and soul.

During his law enforcement career, Sheriff Jake Moser has been called to Woodruff Mountain a few times to deal with some rather weird situations. Now, recovering from a bullet wound that should have killed him and fending off his mother’s ravings about the evil that lurks on the mountain, he’s making alternate career plans.

Just as those plans begin to take shape, someone starts kidnapping newborn babies, then returning them unharmed. To make things even more interesting, an irritating adversary from his past has returned to bedevil him in a whole new, delightful way.

After her erratic psychic gift forced her to abandon her home and a promising musical career, Thea Woodruff has spent years trying, unsuccessfully, to atone for the death of Becca Moser, Jake’s sister. Once she has mourned those she’s lost and apologized to those she’s failed, she intends to flee her mountain once again. 

Jake would rather she stay to compose a new tune—with him. But their complicated harmony reveals a guilty secret that threatens not only their future, but their lives…

Warning: A temperamental flute-player returns to torment an old flame, but he has other ideas, and the music they make together is combustible—and magical.

The review: Making Magic is the third book in the Books of the Kindling series and really made me wish I was up on that mountain making sweet, magical music with Jake, Jake, hotcake ;)
So, we head back to Woodruff Mountain and rejoin Grace, Nick, Daniel, Mel and all of the gang as they prepare for Daniel & Mel’s wedding and that is what brings the final Woodruff sibling back into the fold….. Thea is a corporate lawyer who is working for her father – or was – because she quits in the first part of the book in an eerie fashion and we get to see just what impact Thea’s gift has. Thea heads of to finally join her brother and sister on the mountain while she contemplates her next move.
Jake Moser, town sheriff and recovering gunshot victim is happily making plans of his own and it looks like he is contemplating a career change too. Jake and Thea have history, they used to make music together with Jake’s brother and sister but that dream died along with Jake’s sister Becca and was the catalyst for Thea’s departure from not only the mountain but from music….. until out of the blue, she returns.
Thea’s arrival brings old feelings to Jake but brings out worse feelings in others who have certain ideas of what is going on at Woodruff and to top it all off….babies start to go missing and someone Thea would rather not see again shows up and things start to get a whole lot of complicated.
As always with this series, it is so easy to get into these books and the characters are beginning to feel like old friends. The author has a wonderful way of bringing to life the mountain and everything in it, making me really wish that I lived there. I wasn’t sure I was going to like Thea because what we knew of her, sort of indicated that she sided with her father on issues against her siblings but we quickly find out that is not the case. She was quite the schemer, willing to take risks with herself for the better of others but once you get to know more about her, she seems to have had the worst deal out of the Woodruff siblings. Her power is quite unique and just the same as the other books – makes you think a lot about what would happen to people with a ‘gift’ like that…. It has to be one that can do the most damage and its consequences are limitless, I have no doubt that in the wrong hands, a power like this would corrupt and be abused for the owners gain.
Although the connection and past she shares with Jake is tinged in sadness, I loved the easy camaraderie they had with each other – the teasing and love of music gave them a bond that was still there years later and they really suited each other, it definitely had a will they, won they, friends to lovers kind of vibe and it was sweet to read about their changing feelings and also hot to see what kind of tension was between them.
The storyline was a good one, not as in your face or violent as the previous two but great all the same. I liked that this time we are seeing the corporate angle of the environmental issues and how they try to find out about their competition plus I’m curious as to how a man whose children took in all of the lessons learned from their grandfather didn’t take heed himself, does he not have a gift? Did he ignore it? Or was greed too powerful for him to resist? Because the location is all about the town around Woodruff, we get to meet some townsfolk and see their way of life, for the most part they all seem to be down with taking care of the environment and some may even be ‘special’ but as always, you get a few who see things differently and that is where the threat comes to the story….. because not all people are who you think they are. I enjoyed the musical aspect to the story also and thought that it was a great way for Thea and Jake to reconnect, I also liked that Thea’s love interest turned out to be someone she knew and had strong ties to the community plus Jake has a little something, something going on himself. By the end of this I was feeling like a story arc had finished but a new one was beginning, I felt that we would be venturing farther afield now and that they all have a direction for finding those fireflies and coaxing the light out of them and that thought makes me very happy. I will always be back for more from this enlightening series.

Thank you to Donna June Cooper for giving me the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review.