Bumpy Oak Books

**I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

Actual rating: 3.5

Alex Shvartsman presents The Middling Affliction, the first in a new urban fantasy series set in New York. The series follows Conrad Brent, a middling, who is able to see magic, but cannot use magic himself except through the aid of objects and artifacts. Brent is a protector in the Watch, duty-driven to defend the mundane population from ill-intentioned magic practitioners. Being a middling is rare and possesses stigma, so when Brent is found out, he is summarily dismissed. When a bioweapon emerges that transforms the magically gifted into middlings, Brent might have to risk everything to solve the problem.

First and foremost, I found The Middling Affliction to be entertaining. Dresden Files by way of Supernatural, Conrad is a main character whose smart mouth leads the way. Like the characters in the aforementioned series, Conrad tends to get himself in trouble as well as gain himself loyal friends. Some of the humor didn’t always land for me, but that’s just the risk an author takes with incorporating humor as a main trait of a perspective character. I did like the varied species and groups that were represented in the story. However, I feel that The Middling Affliction suffered from what many first books to long series do: they spend so much time building the magic, the world, and the rules, that you aren’t very invested in the individual characters yet.

I do feel like Shvartsman has created a good start with a lot of room to continue this series, with this book acting effectively as a “pilot” type book. There is a lot of potential here and I hope that readers will be willing to continue the series and allow it to build. After all, it’s rarely the “pilot” episode that is the best in the series, and I look forward to seeing Conrad’s universe play out.