Reliquary by Sarah Fine

Title: Reliquary

Series: Reliquary, book 1

Author: Sarah Fine

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Publisher: 47North

Date: June 2016

Length: 331 pages

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Mattie Carver’s engagement party should have marked the start of her own personal fairy tale. But when her fiancé, Ben, is violently abducted the next morning, her desperate quest to find him rips her away from small-town life and reveals a shattering truth: magic is real—and Ben is hooked. It’s not the stuff of storybooks. It’s wildly addictive, capable of producing everything from hellish anguish to sensual ecstasy almost beyond human endurance.
Determined to find out who took Ben and why, Mattie immerses herself in a shadowy underworld and comes face-to-face with the darkly alluring Asa Ward, a rogue magic dealer, infamous hustler…and her missing fiancé’s estranged brother. Asa has the power to sense magic, and he realizes Mattie is a reliquary, someone with the rare ability to carry magic within her own body, undetected. Asa agrees to help find Ben on one condition: Mattie must use her uncommon talent to assist his smuggling operations. Now, from magic-laced Vegas casinos to the netherworld clubs of Bangkok, Mattie is on a rescue mission. With Asa by her side, she’ll face not only the supernatural forces arrayed against her but the all-too-human temptation that she fears she can’t resist.

Description from Goodreads

Mattie is a small town girl living the perfect life. She has a job she loves working for her fiancé with whom she is head-over-heals in love, and is surrounded by friends and family. Then Ben is kidnapped and evidence comes to light that he might have faked everything in order to disappear. With her perfect world crumbling and fearing that the police are refusing to consider other leads, Mattie (without a badass bone in her body) is prepared to move heaven and earth to save him. Thank God for Asa.

What I liked

Magical Mobsters: The world building was very creative. I enjoyed how Fine wove a magical narcotics underground into the modern world.

Asa: Asa doesn't just sense magic, he can feel what type it is and he can't block it out. His gifts are fairly rare and incredibly useful, which means he is constantly trying to dodge bosses who want to "hire" him. I was expecting the typical Alpha tough guy who's dead inside with a great poker face, but that's not Asa. While he definitely is a tough guy, and he has a great poker face and can be very manipulative, his powers take a very visible toll on him. There are times when this guy is holding on by his fingernails but he's still trying to help and safeguard Mattie, despite his protests to the contrary.

Mattie: I liked her. Yes, she was in over her head, didn't use comment sense sometimes because she had no idea what she was doing, but she was brave and strong despite how scared she was.

What I'm on the fence about

BDSM: At first it made sense to that part of the story, and psychologically some of it kind of made sense for Mattie, but then it lost me. According to Fine's site, she wanted to add "a hint erotic romance" to the story. I've got no problem with that, but I was a bit confused with how it fit with Asa and Mattie because didn't seem to jive with what I knew of their characters. (But let's be honest, Asa always keeps you guessing.) Maybe the next book in the series will flesh this out a bit better.

What didn't work for me

Ben: I've got my eye on you, you manipulative jerk.

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Rating: 4.0

I really enjoyed this read, but not quite enough to buy the book. That being said, I had so much fun with it that a rating lower then 4 makes me feel bad. This is a great library or Kindle Unlimited book. (Even my little library system has several of Fine's books). If you're looking for a fast read that makes a good diversion, this is it.

Have you read this? Did anybody else what to take Asa home and take care of him? I just wanted to feed him and let him sleep. What did you think of Mattie's avoidance of discussing what Ben did? I'm having feels, and they aren't the warm fuzzy kind.