How Not to Summon Your True Love by Sasha L. Miller
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (125 pages)
Heat Level: Sweet (MM Romance)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by AstilbeThough it doesn’t really come as a surprise, Cy is still crushed when he’s dumped. His relationship with Alex had lasted longer than all previous attempts, and started promising when Alex had proclaimed he was perfectly okay with Cy being asexual.
On impulse, convinced no one will ever really see him as worthy relationship material, Cy turns to a book that belonged to his late mother, a grimoire of magic spells that obviously won’t work. It’s a stupid idea, and even if magic was real there’s no way a true love summoning spell would work for him.
It was supposed to be a silly spell and nothing more than that.
The world building in this story was so complex that I actually briefly wondered if I’d accidentally stumbled into the middle of a series. While this didn’t turn out to be the case after all, I was still impressed with how many details about this universe Ms. Miller packed into the plot. She had thoughtful explanations for everything from how magic works to what happens when someone accidentally breaks the rules that usually govern how and when magic is used.
I would have liked to see more attention paid to the romantic elements of this book. The characters involved in it were both wonderful people, but the chemistry between them never quite felt right to me. It often seemed as though they were developing a friendship instead of falling in love. Friendship is definitely an important part of romantic relationships, but it would have been helpful to have some strong examples of them being attracted to each other so that this part of the storyline could have flowed more easily.
Cy was such an interesting guy. I enjoyed seeing how he changed after his sad and somewhat self-deprecating introduction. His evolution fit his personality perfectly. While he changed a lot from the first scene to the last one, the most important parts of his identity like his intelligence and his curiosity remained the same.
How Not to Summon Your True Love should be read by anyone who is in the mood for an urban fantasy tale that comes with a side of romance.
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