Bitten By Magic by Brogan Thomas:

5 stars

Hestia Howard has a bitter pill to swallow: someone close betrayed her, and now she’s a sentient house. Over the years, she nearly loses track of who she is—until someone in need runs by. Guided by an instinct she thought was gone, Hestia becomes a refuge. But the world has changed, and people have begun noticing a few things. A councilor knows she’s an anomaly now, and she can’t be certain whether he wants to understand, control, or destroy her. When an attack comes while she’s already weakened, it leads to the impossible—rewriting the whole game.

I’ve been reading Brogan Thomas for several years and have been waiting for this book, dying of curiosity to see how she would plot it.

Bitten by Magic is daring, weaving together multiple time periods and mini-stories within the larger narrative while still balancing the core plot. It does require active engagement from the reader, but that structure feels like the only way to tell House’s story properly.

Hestia, though powerful, strikes me as unfinished and unsatisfied. She just hasn’t realized she wasn’t really living. When she becomes House, she’s forced to be cunning, quick, and eventually make some very hard choices. In an ironic twist, being unmade as a human and turned into a house gives her the depth she once lacked.

There are many compelling characters in this story—Beryl, Harriet, Lark, Winifred, and Lander. Snack Thief is a personal favorite. I would have enjoyed a little more distinction from Dayna, but overall, this is a complicated and well-balanced cast.

The plot is carefully seeded, giving us just enough information for the big reveal to feel earned. With so much of the book dedicated to House’s history, it’s impressive how much story is still packed into the present-day narrative. It almost feels churlish to say so, but I would have enjoyed a few more clues about certain characters’ motivations. Even so, this is a craft story in the best sense: we can see how the pieces fit together, and all the moving parts work beautifully. Although ambitious, Bitten by Magic lands.

Emotionally, I was woefully unprepared for this story. I don’t usually expect urban or contemporary fantasy to hit that hard, but I actually cried in a couple spots. It’s a little bizarre how much I related to a house!

Bitten by Magic is an engaging addition to the Bitten Chronicles, perfectly on-brand for Brogan Thomas and delivering on the promise woven into the previous stories. It has warmth, charm, humor, action, and romance—so good. For newcomers, I recommend starting with Bitten Shifter to get the full story.