A Mage’s Guide to Human Familiars by A J Sherwood
R’iyah Family Archives series #1. M-M-M romance fantasy with mages, familiars, and swords.
Bel Adams needs a new familiar and ends up calling army Ranger, Nico di Rossi who was bored, bored, bored with his regular job. Nico gladly leaves the army to be with the mage. But his training is advance deployment and needs training to stay closer to Bel so his prior lover Garen Dallarosa is borrowed from the Secret Service to train Nico to be a body guard. The three find they work effectively and efficiently together fighting magical problems.

A mage getting a familiar story. But more, the story totally goes off the rails in humor and throw-away comments. I enjoy the heck out this story as humor, puns and ridiculous are totally my jam. The three do a good job of solving problems too with the help of Demon Grandpa. I can’t imagine where this will possible go, but I’m very sure it will be entertaining, romantic, and full of giggles for me.
“A coffee offering. All hail the coffee offering.” ( )

Another A.J. Sherwood that I totally loved. In fact, when I finished, I had to do a search to see if there were more, and hallelujah! There are. Or at least there is one more and a third due for release in May this year - Time to get reading.
Again - interesting characters set in a well-wrought world. A lovely plot line that keeps the story flowing and leaves the reader happy and wanting more. ( )

Interesting characters and interesting obstacles, versus too much unnecessary prose. I felt the emotional hits, but they were mostly clumped at the end. I don't regret reading it, but repetition, dull and unnecessary description, and more repetition was a constant irritant when this should have been a shorter, much punchier story. Worse, there was a certain sameness to most of the characters' dialogue, even the grandpa demon. One side character stood out, highlighting this flaw in the others. It definitely needed a much better editor, like whoever edited the author's Unholy Trifecta series. ( )

I loved the concept. The way magic worked, the demons, the whole idea of familiars. I also loved all of the characters (my favourites are Nico and Wicky)! It's very slow burn, with lots of interruptions that slow the relationship progress. I struggled with some of the language. When the characters said things like 'sex you up' or 'amazeballs' I kind of cringed, to be honest.

I'll definitely be continuing with the series. I'm hoping for a book featuring Wicky!

3.75? Maybe. Somewhere between 3.5 and 4. ( )