One Part Human (An Obscure Magic, #1) by Viola Grace

One Part Human (An Obscure Magic, #1) Reviews

• 
  namericanwordcat

  I enjoyed this new world from Viola Grace with a great heroine with many cool skills.
  
  It is a silly start. A food blogger would not be asked to go on a ride along. I am not sure why Grace did this. However, the mystery is good.
  
  The romance is pretty thin in this first installment and this is a serial. Bleh. Serial.
  
  However, all the paranormal races are fun and the action is fun.
  
  The heroine has great parents and friends but the heroes are barely developed.
  
  So, this book is a see saw of good and bad but I liked it enough to buy other books in the series.
• 
  Mara

  This is a note to myself. It's not, nor is intended as, a review.
  
  
  
  Nope, no way. If I have to judge from these few pages, it's going to be a disaster. A food blogger is called to write an investigative piece for a newspaper. Yeah. Solid. She's hiding as human, but acts as other. Very solid.
  Cheesy doesn't cover the dialogue, plus it's 5 bucks for a hundred pages...
  
  Thank you, but no.
• 
  Sandra

  I love Viola Grace/Zenina Masters' writing. That said, she has upped her skills in this new series, and I'm delighted that she has.
  
  Benny Ganger is a bitzer in a most delightful way. She has many different supernatural ancestors but looks human. She has been leading a human life working for the local newspaper and writing a cooking blog.
  
  Forced into a ride-along with XIA, supernatural law-enforcement, her ancestry comes out when young women's bodies turn up without souls or blood. Her XIA team consists of a vampire, a fey and a lion shifter. All of them are very interested in her. Of course.
  
  We have a delightful array of supernaturals including demons, ghosts, succubi, trolls as well as the aforementioned supes. And killer tacos.
  
  Really, really looking forward to the next instalment and delighted that Viola is planning a long series.
• 
  Tracy

  This was a train wreck. The writing was cold and emotionless. I felt like I was reading an instruction manual. There was no feeling what so ever. Words on paper nothing more or less.
  
  I can't believe people spent 5 bucks on such a short an awful ebook - and they rave about it giving it 5 stars. I'm not sure we all had the same book
• 
  Jennifer Hanssen

  Another gem from Viola Grace.
  
  This is book one of her new series, An Obscure Magic, and I already can't wait for the next book!
  
  Benny, a journalist with a food blog, is assigned to ride along with an XIA team for the week to write an article on the XIA agency as she is the only journalist who can pass as human.
  During her week with the three agents, her secrets are revealed, a dark evil threatens her existence, and she develops an attraction to all three agents.
  Journey into the imagination of Viola Grace to see if they can thwart evil, if the agents can accept Benny's secrets, and whether Benny will choose the shifter, vampire, or fey agent...or does a choice even need to be made.
• 
  Sonia189

  I surprisingly liked this one and had no expectations. This is sort of urban fantasy but what I liked best were the characters. There are flaws but the simplicity of the story has to have some points.
  I'm intrigued enough about the whole paranormal society and all the species included to read the next one one day.
• 
  Andrea Jackson

  Pretty cover, poorly written.
• 
  Lara

  I started this book thinking it would be a longer short story, as most of Grace's books are. After a few chapters I realized that it was much monger, but was having such a good time I didn't care. The heroine is a journalist who has some magical power. Some time before a magical event occurred and there are now various magical beings. Some of these beings cause problems, so there is a special police force that was put into place to keep the order. Our heroine, Benny, has had her own reasons to stay away from them, but is now assigned to shadow one of their teams for a week as part of the 50th anniversary of the organization's founding.
  
  Benny (and there are a lot of women using men's nicknames) has a good sense of humor and doesn't scare easily. I really liked her and her attitude. As the story moves along we realize that there are many secrets and her life has been pretty complicated. However, those secrets are laid out bit by bit.
  
  One of the things I enjoyed is the relationship she develops with the, variously hot and gorgeous, men she follows. She clearly experienced some traumatic events in her youth and has developed to be self-confident and has a loving and supportive family. Despite being surrounded by gorgeous men who start to flirt with her, she keeps her cool. That is another thing I enjoyed. Despite the opportunity, and the ability to easily make opportunity, she stays focused on what is important rather than indulge herself. She keeps her desires under wraps. I was soooo glad to have that happen. I am tired of characters who need to stay alert being overwhelmed by their lust in the middle of hunting or hiding out.
  
  While the book ends on a wrapped up note, there is clearly more going on in Benny's life that will, hopefully!, require additional books.
• 
  Coyora Dokusho

  Well, I liked it! Insta-love and all. ... Seriously insta-love. The world-building was more in depth than usual and I really appreciated that, but then there came a point where it felt like she just gave up and just started chucking everything at us because the END WAS COMING!! The only character that got developed was the MC... and the parents. Apparently the love-interests are not.important. Still, enjoyed it and will read more.
• 
  Hayley

  What the hell?
  
  I like Viola Grace stories - they're usually short and sweet and so I was excited to start reading this full length novel. But honestly, I didn't get to far into it before I dropped it in my DNF pile. It's just so bad!? I don't understand. It's stilted and robotic and so weak - Ms. Grace should still to short stories!
  
  
• 
  Steve Naylor

  Rating 2.0 stars
  
  I made it about 50% before I decided there was no point in continuing. The premise didn't make much sense to me right from the beginning. I didn't actually hate this book, I just didn't want to waste my time with a story I didn't care about.
  
  The main character is Benny, she looks human but has a secret in her blood line. She works as a reporter who mainly works on cooking stories. The XIA is an organization that focuses on policing the supernatural community. This organization has its 50 year anniversary this week and Benny is chosen to write that story. ( Yeah that makes sense. I am sure the FBI will want to tap Martha Stewart to write a story about them for their anniversary too!). This is dangerous for Benny since she needs to hide the secret of her heritage ( she may look human but she has a bunch of supernatural DNA in her blood). You would think that she would hang back and be careful about what she does in front of other people then right? Of course not. She immediately starts doing things that are suspicious. She is only supposed to be on a ride along and watch, but she ends up actively helping the agents. She is teamed with 3 supernatural males for her ride along ( one was a werelion, another a vampire, and the third was Fae). The dynamic between the group and Benny didn't seem very appropriate. Right off the bat there was too much playfulness with some sexual undertones. It didn't bother Benny, but it bothered me because it seemed so out of place. There was no last straw kind of moment for me when I stopped reading. I just knew I didn't care about the rest of the story, so why waste my time.
• 
  Melanie

  3.5 stars. It looks like this is going to be a good series, it's just a pity that it's only about 100 pages long.
  
  However, there's a lot packed into this book and all of it is interesting. I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next.
• 
  Lburt

  DNF! So this book is just well boring to say the least, maybe it would have picked up but half way though and nothing is happening. Plus Benny is just too prefect. She barely flicks her wrist and is solving huge problems left and right that the so called professionals can't figure out. Ugh!
• 
  Simone

  This book was too much, the main character has all the powers because she is part every supernatural being that ever existed, three love interests, one of each kind and what it doesn't have it's a plot. I'll give 2 stars just because I finish it.
• 
  R *is for Relentless*

  mfmm polyamorous. good story, probably would have rated it higher if the three parts of the story had been marketed as one complete book. Not technically a serial because there was an "ending".I liked the characters and the premise of the story. BTW I did buy all three books in the series.
• 
  Angel Ludwig

  Interesting world
  
  Author has a tendency to overload her heroes / main characters with powers, but the world and story are entertaining enough to keep me reading.
  
  Though I do wish she'd take a punctuation refresher (Otherwise, the editing is pretty good).
• 
  Theda

  Really enjoyed
  
  Really enjoyed this book . Characters are fun, intelligent and I am looking forward to reading more in the series.
• 
  Lyndi W.

  I think this was probably my first reverse harem book.
• 
  Kei

  Uh-oh. Where do I even start.
  Probably with the godawful writing. It's so bad I don't think I can even bring myself to call this a 'novel'. It's more like reading a story in bullet points, in 1-2 sentence paragraphs. And not well-constructed sentences at that.
  Then came the story... You see, there was supposed to be this premise that the main character's nature is a secret, but then she is forced to go on a ride-along with law enforcement agents that are not supposed to find out who she is. But you pretty much realise right away that the 'secret' isn't much of a secret at all, as she goes about handing out her blood for drinking, "solving crimes", and generally doing everything she can to show how 'special' she is. With the 'agents' mostly behaving as her muscle and clueless teenagers.
  I will be honest, I was kind of lulled into a false sense of security by the weird and childish writing and even thought that there were some veeeery rare lines of dialogue that were pretty good.
  But then, suddenly, from childish wiring and naïve story with characters behaving like teenagers, we go to the main character imagining how she could violate one of her agents against the car and have the others watch. And random NPC point out how all three of the agents are getting infatuated with her, and her first thought is 'Do I have to choose? I kind of want to try them on for size'. Although, all of these weird porny hints also don't really go anywhere.
  I don't know is they are all going to have a happy orgy in the following books, or she is going to be 'trying them on' one by one, or if her harem and number of orgy participants will grow with each next book, and frankly I have 0 desire to find out.
  Absolutely terrible writing, absolutely tasteless story.
• 
  Vannessa

  I actually really enjoyed reading this book. It was my first time reading anything by this author and loved the idea of the multi-raced woman, part human, lots of parts of other creatures and beings. Benny has been living her life mostly as a human; her looks ensures she only needs a little glamour to hide what she really is. She works as a journalist and blog writer and seeing as she looks the most human is assigned to working with the XIA, the eXtranormal Investigation Agency, to celebrate their anniversary.
  
  She follows a team of three, a lion shifter, a vampire and a fey and eventually joins in to help them solve supernatural crimes and situations. They have no idea what she is, but they have a feeling that she is not completely human. Only when a girl is killed, drained of blood but with no wounds and her soul missing, does Benny need a bit of extra help from her parents. Parents, who are nowhere near human and end up shocking the XIA agents a bit! Turns out Benny is in a lot of danger and together the team have to work out how to stop her from ending up with the same fate as the girl they found!
  
  Definitely going to be a series I will read more of!
• 
  Jessica

  Don't bother
  
  I hate finished this thinking it might get better. It did not.
  
  First of all, there are no contractions in this book. The language is very stilted and jarring. It took me out of the moment every time, and it's very noticeable.
  
  The book drops us in the middle of a magical police procedural where none of the laws are explained nor do they appear to be internally consistent. A succubus is bound to do the demon king's deals for him, except becoming a mother frees her for some reason. But she wants another child and for some reason that would make her tied to the demon king again? This is never adequately explained and it's the main plot point. The main female character is all of the special supernatural races and super good at all the magics. All the boys are in love with her, which is not shown in any way except that they say so. It's all very boring and reads like bad fanfiction with plot holes a mile wide even on the bits the author bothers to explain.
• 
  Annelie

  Very good!
  
  I really loved this book! The world building is interesting as well as the characters.
  The family of Benny is on the crazy side but very caring, and loving. Benny is a complex character, brave, gifted with powerful magic, and is very intelligent. I liked that she was kind, didn't take risks being reasonable and understanding why she has to be protected. A nice change from all these empty headed who throw herself in dangerous situations not caring what their guys say.🙄
  About the guys, the fact that they were from different species is interesting and they have very distinct characters. They were clever as well, protective without being psychos and assh*le.
  The storyline had some twist turns and I really look forward reading about Benny and her guys as she was pretty oblivious about how much the guys liked her😂
• 
  JV Findlay

  One Part Human, Two Parts Demon, Three Parts Fey are the first three parts of a series An Obscure Magic. Full of creatures with their own magic signatures, politics and heroes and villians, its a great good start.
  
  Benny is a journalist who loves food. She writes about food for her media network and enjoys spending time with her home-bound mother and father. But when the boss demands she join the XIA (eXtranatural Investigative Affairs) she has to spend a week riding along with three very tough, very different, and very handsome men. What's a girl to do? Especially since the latest spat of murders are centered around her and her family.
  
  Turns out that hiding her very mixed blood and background was a lot harder than she first thought.
• 
  Tracy Hoyt

  Beneficent Benny!
  
  Such an intriguing and unassuming description for a whole host of shenanigans and creatures galore! I love how Viola's writing and stories just sort of creep up on you and pounce! This story has bite, power, humor and a taste of romance to come, I hope, I hope! 😊 This new world and these characters fairly leap off the page! The story is seamless and immersive, and I plowed through it in no time flat. It's an unfortunate side effect to an excellent story, I just couldn't help myself! I have no patience for waiting, and a need to swallow the story whole. In one, big, gulp! Thank you for this much needed reboot for my mind! I cannot wait for the next one, but, of course, I will!
  
  
• 
  Laurie Stewart

  I thought this book was seriously fun!
  The magic is interesting, the characters fleshed out enough to be interesting but leaving some room for more books to reveal more. I've read several in this series, and it's a cool idea to have each book about a different community member, with the others as supporting characters in each other's books.
  THe length is a little short, she could have fleshed out some scenes, or added more to fill out a few more pages, but I still loved it enough to get 4 more in the series right away.
• 
  Andrea Smith

  Part Human- Obscure Magic
  4.5 Stars 
  
  
  I'm in the mood for a nice comfy read. This is a re-read for me, but I noticed I haven't raved about this series or rated it. 
  
  The Obscure Magic series is one of my favorite series by Viola Grace. I love her dynamic characters, sense of humor and the interesting worlds she creates. 
  
  Come join Benny on the adventures of riding along with the three XIA agents. What could go wrong? There's magic, fae, shifters, vampires, and a very pissed off mermaid. It's a fun, quick read. 
• 
  Shelly Roke

  A journalist walks into the XLA
  
  Somebody from the paper needs to do a ride- along with the XIA eXtranatural Investigation Agency. Benny doesn't want the assignment, but the boss points out she's the only one that looks human. She meets her team of 3 agents, a fae, a vampire and a shifter. She rides along the calls, then one is demon related. She calls her parents, then her team shows up to talk to her dad. Things get really interesting then!