Jessica (HDB)

I don't have too much to say about A Murder of Magpies, other than that it confused me to no end. From the synopsis I knew that this had something to do with telekinesis. Or, at least I thought it did. I'd be hard pressed to explain to you exactly what a "Mind Game" is, because it is a lot of things in this book and not all of them exactly made sense to me.

So, from what I gather, our main characters are Romani. Most of us would know them as gypsies, but they absolutely hate that word here. Vayda and her brother both have the power to affect the world around them with their powers. These powers seemed (again, not exactly clear) to be affected by their emotions. The stronger the emotion? The more violent the power. While I thought this was interesting, it was also a bit muddled. Vayda was able to break light bulbs when she was upset, her brother was able to float tables and actually mess with people's emotions. I had no concrete idea of the limits of their powers, and it drove me mad.

This story ends up as a dark romance mixed with a mystery that I just wasn't feeling. The fact that I had no idea what was going on the majority of the time, added to my inability to connect with the characters, made this a book I just couldn't get into. I finished it, but only barely. Maybe other readers will have better luck. For me, this was a two-star read.