I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

The Magician's Lie is an excellent read if, like me, you're fascinated by anything magic-related - even when the magic is just a trick. This is one of those books that always left me wanting more: more time with the characters, more time to read it. My only regret is that I picked this up in a fairly busy period, and so I couldn't dedicate as much time as I wanted to reading it. But, in the time I had available, it kept me glued to the page from the very beginning!

The Amazing Arden, or Ada, was a most intriguing character. She is an incredibly strong-willed and gifted young woman, and the abuse she endures as a child only makes her resolve greater. I really admired her ability to build her own life form scratch and to a way out of any difficult situation. Her story completely captured Virgil's attention, and mine with him.

Up until the very end, I kept wondering whether she had actually done what she was accused of - was this the magician's lie or was she being truthful? I liked the conclusion, but most of all, I liked the journey to discovering what had happened. The writing was excellent and the characters were wonderfully complex, even though some of them (like Virgil) feel merely instrumental to Arden's storytelling. My only complaint is that some passages detailing how Arden set up her show were a bit too long and slow for my taste - but that's only personal taste!

If you like a captivating thriller/mystery in a wonderfully detailed historical setting, this book is definitely for you. The Magician's Lie will keep you wondering right up to the end: what is true, and what is just an illusion? ( )

A word to any and all writers out there. If you kill off one of your main characters, don't "magically" bring them back to life. it's a cheap and shallow plot device , and it makes your readers feel used and manipulated. ( )

This book left me with mixed feelings. The parts with the magic had strong imagery and I can see why the marketing blurb tried to draw a parallel with The Night Circus and Water for Elephants but unfortunately it is not in the same league.

The concept was good and the Ada/ Arden’s story is interesting but the set up to get to her back story was contrived and dragged the book down in parts. The author is at her best with her female characters as Ray, Clyde and Virgil are all flawed in some way or other and I found it hard to care what happened to any of them.

****Spoiler******


In fact I found the whole Ray story the least enjoyable of the book and would have been happy for the author to have killed him off much earlier in the book !!!!!

I was also disappointed in the ending – after all the build-up and magic and book title I expected a more elaborate or unusual outcome. ( )

I saw the Magician's Lie by Greer Macallister as one of the past selections from Book of the Month Club. Whoopi Goldberg was the judge for that month, but I had not been part of the club yet and I couldn't pull the trigger on buying the book.

The following week, the book was on an ebook sale, so I thought that fate was throwing me at this book. I took it with me on a work trip and decided to read the whole thing during that trip.

The difficult part was the book was the second book that dealt with abuse against women that I had read. It was something that I was not expecting and after having just finished a book that also had abuse, I wasn't feeling well after reading this one.

The book is about the rise of the Amazing Arden the second female magician of the late 1800s to early 1900s. We follow her life as she moves from a dancer to one of the greatest magicians of her time. She rivals men's tricks and amazes audiences. She is on top of the world, in love, and raking in money until her past catches up with her.

It is also about the murder of her husband, who is laying in the bottom half of one of her greatest tricks, where she uses an ax to cut a man in half. It appears as if she has killed her husband on stage in front of a live audience. She is arrested and interrogated. The book moves back and forth from her interrogation to her story. The question is- which parts are true and which aren't?

I have to admit that I asked my wife- what's up with female authors and writing about abuse? Not because I am unaware of spousal abuse or am ignorant that abuse happens, but because I had finished another book with the same topic, also written by a female author. My wife's response was- does the book have a man that she cannot love because she has to be with the abuser? My response was yes. Her reply was- my dear, you just read a typical romance novel.

I will also admit that I did find some fault with the Amazing Arden's character development. Throughout the book, we see her character grow and get stronger, as she is haunted by the abuse she took as a teenager. That abuse drives her to become the best and the greatest. To me, toward the late part of the book, she once again becomes the Arden that isn't as strong or mighty. From my understanding though, this too can play out in abusive situations. Personally, though I wanted a stronger Arden who has lived, grown, and become the woman she became. I am avoiding spoilers, but should you read it, you will see what I mean.

There are long parts of this book that simply do not move the story forward or develop the character much. The characters though are rich and the story is well written. I found myself, even during the longer parts, desiring to know what is next. I gave this one 3.5 stars. ( )

I'm drawn to stories about magic, theatres, vaudeville, so this one was the book I could not put down... I walked around the house with it, stayed up at night, took it to stand in line at the grocery. This was that ever so rare treasure. ( )