Part murder mystery and part fantasy, I admit I wasn’t really sure how this genre combination would work, especially with the romance angle I discovered woven into the story. I am not a big fan of romance, but I am a sucker for murder mysteries, especially the police procedural kind. I also tend to like my fantasy to be in small doses, with a story having fantasy elements (like the magicians in this story) but still grounded in a reality that I can easily relate to. Add in beautiful, descriptive settings like Venice and throw into the mix something mysterious like the lost city of Atlantis and chances are I will find the premise intriguing enough to start reading. While I enjoyed the setting and the characters – especially Venetian police Inspector Marco and the other Atlantean magicians – I found the story was short on police procedural aspects and gave a bit too much attention to the sexual tension between Penelope and Alexis. Just a heads up if you are reading this review and like me, really don’t want romance as a prominent theme running through the story. I am also not a big fan of the ending. It just doesn't work for me, even if we are talking about a story with fantasy elements. For a first book in the planned The Immortal City series, the author has done a good job acquainting readers with the characters while still leaving room for further development in future books.

If I have to nail this book down for potential readers, I would have to say that this one will probably best appeal to readers who enjoy Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches, a book that was a fun read for me, but not something I would gush over with great enthusiasm. ( )

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The discovery of a piece of tablet that Dr. Penelope Bryne found on the ocean floor has her claiming it is from the lost civilization of Atlantis. Trying to get funding, she gives a lecture on her findings but is made to look a fool when an audience member directs the conversation towards magic. When an Inspector in Italy emails about a gruesome murder in Venice, she flies on the first plane out of Australia when the writing and symbols decorating the murder scene match the writing on her tablet.
Alexis is known as The Defender and for thousands of years, he has tried to keep any knowledge about Atlantis from the public. As one of the surviving magicians from Atlantis, he feel it is his sacred duty. When Dr. Bryne's discovery gains attention, he immediately tries to destroy any credibility she may have but he can't ignore the feelings he has for her.
Ritual murders and long thought enemies destroyed will have Penelope and Alexis working together and also fighting the magic happening between them.

The Doctor and the magician eyed each other, neither moving.

The first in The Immortal City series, we are first introduced to Penelope who is fighting to prove Atlantis existed and trying to help an Inspector Marco with a series of ritualistic murders. The set-up to get Penelope to Venice and involved in the murders was a little loose and her involvement lessens to a degree that made it feel a bit weak. I did enjoy the secondary character of Marco and how he helped fill out the story but at times he felt more colored in than Alexis, who should be the co-star, with Penelope, of the story.

We learn the basics of who Alexis is, an immortal magician from Atlantis, but a solid backstory is left to around the sixty percent, where we learn a little bit about his life in Atlantis and how he was picked to become a magician. The other six magicians, with Nereus being their leader, were rounded out well and they did intrigue enough to gain some interest in their future books.

“A man appears in my meditation, turns out to be a real-life magician from Atlantis who wants my help hunting down priests of a demonic cult,”

The gist of the plot is Penelope trying to help Marco translate the writing at what appears to be ritualistic murder scenes (the author gets pretty gruesome in describing these scenes) with Alexis coming in as he's been keeping tabs on Penelope and trying to figure out how the murderer could possibly know about Atlantis dark magic. There's the mystery of could it be dark priests or demons of a cult, called Thevetat that the magicians clashed with and brought down the demise of Atlantis but thought to have died there or if the killings are just supposed to scare people in a political power move. The inclusion of how Venice should be structured because of rising water levels with DIGOS and MOSE was more confusing than adding another level to the story, I thought this whole part should have been left out in favor of just going with the magicians versus Thevetat and more of a backstory to them in Atlantis.

“We do this together, Penelope Bryne, or not at all.”

Penelope's character came through strong but for most of the story, I didn't have a strong feel for Alexis and this caused some lack of emotional connection between the two for me. They are said to have a destiny knot and that seemed to be more of an explanation for attraction between the two than I wanted; would have liked to have felt their growing attraction to each other more through scenes.

Some of the middle, forty to sixy percent, dragged for me as we didn't have much momentum in the murder mystery and rehashed a lot but then we get more of Alexis' backstory and the magical, fantasy elements were included more and it did become interesting fiction reading. Alexis and Penelope's romance felt underdeveloped to me and there seemed to be an overall polish to the story that was missing but the author has set-up a curious world with magicians, demons, and Atlantis. ( )

This book has an interesting premise and I liked the mystery aspects of it. I also really liked the character of Penelope. However, I found the romance really badly written and boring. It felt like the plot ground to a halt whenever there was a romantic moment, and it made it a real struggle to get through parts of the book. Overall, if you can get through those parts I would recommend it to anyone interested in mythology or Atlantis. ( )

I'm not sure what to say about this book. It was really hard for me to connect with the characters, which in turn, made it hard for me to get into this story. I struggled to finish it. I did, but just barely. The premise was interesting, which is why I wanted a copy. I mean, magic, crime-solving, AND Atlantis? Yes, please!
Sadly, this book was not for me. ( )

I will say first that I received a copy of this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I'm grateful to the publishers for the opportunity to read this.

This was sort of fun in a big-time tropey way, even if it wasn't fully my thing. The crime-solving and the magic seemed to sort of conflict and crash into each other; I feel like magical crime-solving feels a little different than regular crime-solving and I wasn't sure what to do with that. The romance was super supernatural romance tropey as well, and if soulmate AUs are a thing that interest you, you'd love this book, though they're not exactly my thing. But overall the world is pretty intriguing, and it moves medium-fast (there's a lot of infodumping but it's presented fairly well, I guess?) I think if you like supernatural romance and mystery, you'll really like this book a lot; it's mostly not my genre, but it's not a bad book by any means. ( )