Romantic Magic

By Christopher Dow

What do you get when you mix romance with a little magic?

The Oldest Kind of Magic (Medallion Press, 2005), is written by Ann Macela, who, with a minor slight of hand, becomes Fredericka Meiners ’63, best known at Rice as the author of A History of Rice University: The Institute Years, 1907–1963 (Rice University Press, 1982).

Daria Morgan, the protagonist of The Oldest Kind of Magic, is a minor practitioner from a family of witches and sorcerers who makes a living as a management consultant. Daria isn’t as magically adept as the rest of her family, and her mother suggests her difficulty stems from the fact that she’s a virgin. Although Daria tries to avoid the subject, saying she doesn’t need to be able to cast spells in a world of modern technological conveniences, there are those frightening dreams she’s been having—the ones where she and a handsome, blue-eyed stranger face a group of fearsome monsters.

Meanwhile, businessman John Benthausen needs a good management consultant and hires Daria. Someone is bleeding his bottom line, and if he can’t find out who it is, his company might go belly up. As Daria analyzes Benthausen’s problems, she begins to suspect he may be the man in her dreams and that a group of vicious, crooked employees might be more monstrous than they first appear. Before you can say abracadabra, they’re targeting her, too, and like all good bad guys, they won’t relent without a showdown.

The Oldest Kind of Magic may be a bit of romantic fluff, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the perfect way for some readers to wile away a couple of fun hours.