Reviews

Club Deception by Sarah Skilton

powerlibrarian's review against another edition

5.0

Review of ARC edition

Finally we get to pay attention to the woman behind the curtain! Okay, I stole that line from the book cover, but it's too good not to repeat! This is a compelling, briskly-paced murder mystery/romance. It has the perfect blend of feminism, intrigue, and dark comedy, with a few steamy scenes thrown into the mix.

The book is chock-full of references to the magical world--from well-known magicians from history to popular and not-so-common illusions. I could tell that the author is a magician’s wife herself!

My only complaint is that because there are a lot of characters with their own POV scenes, I don't think Kaimi gets enough attention. I wanted to spend more time in her head, digging into her backstory and motivations. However, I feel like this is offset by how well Claire is developed as a character. Definitely a highlight of the book, Claire is portrayed as a bad-ass feminist, with realistic vulnerabilities that make her both compelling and relatable.

4.5 stars.

alicihonest's review against another edition

3.0

Weird book. Immensely readable, certainly interesting, excellent pacing. But bizarrely sporadic characterization (Claire was excellent, Jessica was laughably terrible) and the whole thing had a discomfiting sheen of sickly sweetness to it. It also was a book that you would expect passages of to be posted online with "haha you can tell a man wrote this" as the comment, except a man didn't write this, just a woman who I guess learned how to write sex from 50 shades but manages everything else acceptably well.

aribookie's review against another edition

2.0

This book could not decide what it wanted to be...a murder mystery? A detailed depiction of the magicians' community? A romance novel? Some of the writing was decent, but there was a lot of painful foreshadowing and godawful dialogue that couldn't salvage the narrative.

bookbriefs's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

 Club Deception is a paranormal mystery novel by Sarah Skilton. This is another one of the way too long list of novels that I have been meaning to read for way too long. (it is part of my personal netgalley challenge of 2021) Though I am happy that I finally checked this book off of my TBR, I do wish I enjoyed this one a little more. I loved the premise of the book, but in the end I thought Club Deception was just ok. it' wasn't bad. It simply didn't wow me very much.

Club Deception has a trio of great M's- magic, magicians, and murder. I was super excited to read about a secret world of magicians wrapped in a murder mystery. I kind of enjoyed the magic element, but I found the mystery side of the story to be a bit fluff and predictable. My favorite aspect of the book was the bitter rivalry between the magicians because it got really tense. So many of the characters in this story are morally grey, or just plan amoral. They have no problem taking what they want, even if it is at the expense of others. Because of this I found it hard to find redeeming qualities in many of the characters, and had a hard time connecting with them. Jessie was my favorite of the bunch.

If you are a fan of lighthearted mysteries and dramatic magicians, I think you might enjoy this book a little more than I did. The mystery was fun and the characters were interesting. I flew through this book very quickly, and it was an ok read, I just didn't end up loving it as much as I thought I would. 

jill_rey's review against another edition

4.0

1. Strong female characters, including one that ran a successful (albeit secret club) in the shadow of her husband.
2. A unique plot surrounding magicians – while this book revolve around magic, it also shows the magicians as “sexy” rather than “nerdy” AND combines this with a murder mystery plot.
3. Every child has experienced at least ONCE in their life the “wow” factor of magic. Whether from a magic trick they saw in person or on one of the many circulating TV shows (Criss Angel Mindfreak & David Copperfield come to mind). This book does a great job playing into this feeling and includes strong character development with some very mild sultry scenes to seal the deal on a great book surrounding the art of magic.

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