Neurotic Thoughts on Illicit Magic

Illicit Magic 
Author: Camilla Chafer
Released: May 11, 2011
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 220
Publisher: Audacious
ISBN: 9780956908605
Target Age: Adult (purely based on a few steamy bits)
Source: The Bookish Snob Promotions blog tour

Summary from Goodreads:
More than three hundred years after the most terrifying witch hunts the world has ever known, it's happening again.

Young witch, Stella, has to put her faith in strangers just to stay alive but she might not be any safer in their midst than from the danger she is running from.

There is more than one dark secret in her new family: Étoile’s sister is spoken of in fear and sadness; Marc is supposed to be a powerful witch but is missing his magic; where does the owner of their safe house vanish to every day and why does Evan have the eyes of someone not quite human? There is only one secret that someone will do anything to keep quiet, but whose secret is it and will Stella have to pay the price for silence?

                                          I REALLY LIKED THIS BOOK!

I had a little trouble getting into Illicit Magic at first. The first 80 pages or so are a lot of new information that wasn't quickly digestible for me. However, once Stella gets to America the pace really picked up, and I was glued to the pages. 

The characters in Illicit Magic are very well written, and I enjoyed learning about each of them. Stella's life since foster care has been terribly mundane. She didn't have any friends because people noticed that she was different, and they were scared of her. She was horribly alone, and she came across as drab, dejected, and well.. boring. Once she arrives in America and is surrounded by people like her she really becomes a different person. Watching her bloom truly was magical. The rest of the characters are so much fun to get to know. They each have their own mystery and instead of knowing everything there is to know about each of them right off the bat, the author slowly reveals their pasts and secrets in this very slow but satisfying way. I really enjoyed that about Camilla's writing style. I had just settled into this lovely story line and all of the sudden a new and unexpected twist was thrown at me. All kinds of hell broke loose, and it was thrilling to read. I was instantly in love with a few of characters and really hope to see them again in the next book. Yep, Illicit Magic is book 1 in the Stella Mayweather series. I was so glad to find out that the ending of this book wasn't really the ending of the story. 

Side note: Just a little pet peeve I had with the book was that the editing wasn't great, and sometimes I got distracted by Camilla's English dialect. This may be why it took me a little while to really fall into the story as well.