Magic

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With great trepidation I started another series. I am suffering from series drag. Several of my series have just gone past their shelf life and muddled into the dull zone. I blame these authors that drag a good thing till it's nothing but trash. When this came up for early review i declined it. Then is came to the library and I just wanted to read a few pages. Still I held it for a week before I picked it up. Holy frozen world, I wish I had given it a shot earlier. The blurb on the book was terrible compared to the book.
The book started with a Vegas card dealer, Nat. She is looking to escape this world frozen under ice to a mystical utopia called The Blue. Her world is filled with starvation, cold, fear and death. She hides her true identity, she is one of the marked. The marked have special abilities, and are taken out of society and used or killed. The propaganda of the government has humans fearing them. One day a beautiful boy steps up to her table and tries to con her but ends up changing her life.
Wes is an ex military, survivalist, con man and hired gun. He has a crew of men he is trying to keep alive. The dealer at the casino, saw his con and ended up coning him. He is intrigued when she wants to hire his crew to The Blue. This girl attracts him, there is something about her. She is money which is survival, he take the job.
The world is frozen, the greenery is gone, life is held in sealed pockets for the wealthy to enjoy. Pirates, Smugglers, Slavers, and Flesh sellers run the outskirts. The inner cities are run by a totalitarian militant government. The Seas are black poisons, with floating islands or trash. Food and clean water are rare.
The journey is dangerous, deadly and bleak. The crew faces death and themselves. There are discoveries of new life, misunderstandings and even some hope. The world is not what the government has drilled into their heads the real world is a complex and beautiful place even with the destruction around them.

This had all the right levels of intrigue, romance, action, horror, adventure to keep me reading through the night. I even talked about it to my friends, family and some poor guy at the coffee shop who probably though I was crazy. It was just so 'cool' and there was so much to share as it related to our world. My nerd loving light is flaring, it lightly reminded me of a Star Trek movie. ( )