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Even after having lived a year in New York city, transplanted Texas native Katie Chandler still can’t help but wonder at the natives who, unlike her, don’t even lift an eyebrow at winged fairies in the subway, floating people, moving gargoyles etc. Stuck in a dead-end job with an ogre of a boss, Katie’s at her wits end when she gets a timely job offer from Magic, Spell and Illusions Inc – a company that sells magic spells and other essentials to the magical community.
Turns out MSI is a truly ‘magical’ place to work at, where Katie’s rare lack of any magic inside her means she’s a powerful asset to them. She can see through spells and enchantments, spot invisible spies and reveal clauses concealed in business contracts like they’re unable to. This is particularly important since an evil competitor is out to destroy MSI by selling potent black magic spells, a dire enough threat that has even brought Merlin the mighty wizard, out of hibernation.
Before long, Katie’s in the thick of it helping Merlin acclimatize to the twenty-first century while hiding a crush on Owen, the powerful but shy R&D head and applying her small-town common sense and human workplace experience to solve magical problems in a most un-magical but effective manner. Suddenly danger surrounds her and Katie realizes that in her enthusiasm for her new job she may have bitten off more than she can chew.
“Enchanted Inc.” heralds the advent of a new crossbreed genre of books, namely the paranormal chick-lit. Katie’s adventures both in the workplace and in the dating world are typical of chick-lit while her new job at MSI Inc whose CEO is Merlin the wizard, adds a touch of the whimsical and sweeps readers into a surreal magical world that supposedly exists within our more mundane one. Swendson flawlessly pull off this blend of the fantastical and the prosaic in the plausible and time-honored tradition of ‘Bewitched’.
Building upon this novel premise, Swendson further tantalizes readers with what looks like a love triangle developing between Katie, Owen and Ethan the sexy but un-magical attorney while side by side escalating the danger and suspense by means of the threat of a powerful dark wizard. There’s plenty of hilarity too such as when Katie goes partying with the fairies and ends up kissing frogs in Central park etc. As delightful as a flute of champagne, this effervescent story will surely ‘enchant’ the readers and is hopefully the first in a ‘magical’ new series.
Reviewed by Rashmi Srinivas
for The Road to Romance
July 29, 2005
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