John Lenahan played the original Talkie Toaster in the BBC Sci-Fi Comedy Series “Red Dwarf”.  He played a talking kitchen appliance totally committed to providing you with toasted breakfast food products.  In real life John is a magician and in 2009 when I met him, a new author.  We were both at the Red Dwarf convention in Birmingham, UK, so I picked up a signed paperback.

Shadowmagic is very honest about itself as a book.  You start out with the protagonist, a young man living with his father who teaches ancient languages.  By the first ten pages he finds out they are really from another world where magic is real, his mother is alive, and they are royalty in hiding.  No spoilers here, you get the same gist if you are the kind of person who reads a back cover of a book you already own.  The author is targeting teen readers with adventures including parents and going solo.  A similar family bonding experience to Ernest Cline’s second book, Armada, but with magic instead of space ships.

After telling you what kind of book it wants to be, Shadowmagic delivers on that promise.  As you would expect, our hero encounters and adapts to new creatures, customs, and biological systems.  These formed a unique enough collection to seem new to me.  [i.e. no Hobbits or magic schools for children].  Plus it doesn’t end as you would expect [getting the girl, becoming King], which I also appreciated.

Shadowmagic is clean fantasy fun.  I see it is now part of a trilogy (Shadowmagic, Prince of Hazel and Oak, Sons of Macha).  I would recommend it for younger readers.