Grumpy Old Wizards Book Review

Grumpy Old Wizards Series Volume 1

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Grumpy Old Wizards by John O'Riley Book Review

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The author, John O'Riley is new to me, but this is a favorite genre of mine. There have been lots of books written with the same overture, where witches & wizards are now a common place. Where there are government agencies that use them to solve cases, or use enforcement to hinder their abilities. Although it's all been written before, the author doesn't re-do it, he has his own plot, focusing on that, and using what other authors have put forth as his background. Some things are a bit different, but it feels comfortable & familiar. If you've never read any of those books before, he explains everything. If you have, this seems like an extension. Almost as if he's writing in the footsteps of Kim Harrison.

I really liked the story here. The characters were well established, and the plot was easy to follow. You can easily get into the characters, and you feel like you know them. It ran at a pace that wasn't too slow, nor too fast.

I did have some problems with the book that really stuck out though. First, it read like a play. It would tell some story, then you'd go into some very choppy dialogue, and then back to the narration. I felt like the dialogue was missing some story. It wasn't letting my imagination take me where the author wanted me to go. Also, the scenes were cut, like a play. It didn't flow like a fictional book. I envisioned a change of sets between 'chapters'. It wasn't until after I finished the book and read up on the author, that I understood. He is an avid screenplay writer. Now it makes sense.

As I was reading it, I wasn't thinking of him as a bad writer; He definitely can tell a story, it just felt.....odd.  I absolutely am going to read the other books in this series, and may even delve into his other series' as well. I wonder if his Psi series it's anything like Nalini Singh's Psys. Hmmm...

The book itself is a large paperback. The typeset is double spaced, which makes the reading of the book fast.

Thank you for the story.

Fifty years after the Disaster, the world is vastly different from days of old. Wizardry is the norm and magical talent is categorized. Josephine O'Connor, an eighty-four-year-old with a penchant for off-beat antics, is a category six, which means she possesses magical powers as rare as they are unsettling and a talent for psychometry that is so strong and acute that she can read the psychic impressions in a room without touching anything.

With her unique physiology, she’s over eighty years of age and still gets carded at R-rated movies. Most of the time it’s flattering but it can sometimes be a nuisance. For the most part, Josephine spends her days like any other retirement community member.

She plays cards with friends, attends get-togethers, and occasionally visits the beach until she is called upon by the police to investigate a crime scene left behind by a suspect with powers equal to her own. Now the race is on. Can an out-of-practice wizard marshal her abilities and catch a menace before he becomes so powerful even she can’t stop him?

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