Russell Isler’s Magical Girl Blues – Indie Book Spotlight!

Hey, Readers! Welcome back! I hope your holiday wish lists were filled in full and you’re not short on new reads in the new year!

Today we’re looking at Magical Girl Blues, the second novel by Russell Isler. We Spotlighted his debut novel, All In back in July of 2023. It was an enjoyable adventure and so when the opportunity to check out a new story in the same universe came along, I was pretty excited!

This is a prequel and deals exclusively with Xenia’s origin story. As such, if you’re new to this series you could certainly start with this book before moving on to All In. There are no spoilers for All In in this Spotlight, either!

So, follow the nearest raven to your local book seller of choice and let’s get magical! You can snag a signed copy right now.

Book Stats

    Author: Russell Isler.
    Formats: Paperback.
    Price: $15.99 for Paperback.
    Length: 478 pages.
    Number of books in the series: Two at the time of writing, this is the second in the Clandestine Series.

Basic Premise
Xenia and Bethany have been best friends since childhood. They are on their way to a concert when the unthinkable happens – a car accident that kills Xenia’s parents, kills Bethany and leaves Xenia injured and alone.

Well. Not alone completely. Xenias kindly and well-traveled great aunt Elspeth swoops in to save the day, giving Xenia a new home and hopefully a place to heal both body and soul.

Speaking of souls, Bethany’s has been unable to find peace so far. Shes trapped in a limbo where she’s able to move around the material plane, but unable to interact with it. She’s visiting her parents a lot, watching her poor Mom spiral, and she visits Xenia. For a moment, Xenia can even see her…

Once Xenia has made the move from Los Angeles to her Aunt’s home in Porter Valley Northern California, Bethany finds herself uprooted and moved along with Xenia with no explanation given. She can not leave, either – any attempt to flee the town of Porter Valley sees her ramming into some kind of spiritual barrier.

But that’s fine. Porter Valley is dealing with a rash of teenage runaways right now. Only, Xenia spots one of these missing kids in class… and he’s quite clearly dead. And that’s about the last thing she needs, between suffering so many massive losses, being the new kid in class and dealing with her injured arm and horrendous migraines. Between glimpses of Bethany and not this, adding Ghost Whisperer to that list just seems unfair. As does suddenly being embroiled in a larger situation involving the runaways and magic! Actual, for-real magic.

Before Xenia knows it, she and her ghostly best bud have to unravel the tangled threads of a story going back thousands of years that’s reared its head in the modern day. A monster is on the loose and needless to say, the missing kids aren’t just mere runaways. They are being devoured by something… or someone. Suddenly, some of the kids in Xenia’s new school aren’t looking quite so innocent…

Want to know more? You gotta read it to find out what’s going on!

My Take
So, I really liked All In. The idea of a magical world filled with monsters and creatures of myth, folklore and legend just beneath the surface of our own mundane world? I love that kind of stuff. As mentioned in the preamble, I was excited to get into another new adventure set in that same two-tiered world and Magical Girl Blues didn’t disappoint! In fact, I enjoyed it even more than the first novel.

You can’t help but feel for Xenia as she’s put through the absolute wringer. And I think we’ve all wished for a Great Aunt Elspeth in our lives once or twice at least. With her Scottish brogue, quiet bad-assery and kindly ways, she’s one of my favorite characters. The other being Maia… I mean. She owns an All Blacks rugby jersey. Coming from New Zealand myself, I very much appreciated this nod to the world’s best sports team bar none.

While high school inter-teen politics DOES play a role in this story, it’s far from the central through-line
so if that’s a concern for you, I wouldn’t let it worry you. We’re dealing with changelings and ghosts and
ancient evils here far more than we’re dealing with jocks vs nerd or mean girls.

All in all, a recommended read from me! I’m looking forward to seeing if any of these characters make their way into the continuing adventures of Eddie Fry back in good ol’ Las Vegas!

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