interesting magic system – The Constellation of Moon

Moon Reads: Shadow Baron

Posted on April 21, 2026

Shadow Baron by Davinia Evans

Rating:

Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.

Now on to book two of this series. Now, this one took me much longer to finish, partly because I was reading other books alongside it and some of those were pretty epic and therefore I had to take a break from fantasy. But still enjoyed it.

This time I will start with the parts that were less positive. We are still suffering with pacing and world building issues. Though you can see that some of the plot is driving the need to fill in those gaps, but also some of those “fixes” are creating new areas and things that again, struggle with that fleshing out. And for me one of the biggest things was that we keep having a “mystery” for Siyon to fix, and that mystery is left too vague and then all of a sudden boom,the vague hints suddenly all align, but not in a satisfying way, they feel a bit clunky and sometimes a bit forced or just faceless, like they weren’t defined enough.

Out of this particular book’s plots, my favourite was Anahid’s. Look, she is going around betting with some semi unsavoury characters, visiting the Flower District (sex workers are called flowers here), and she’s somehow balancing her stifling social needs (barely) with her groiwng interest into the Flower Disctrict and the games she plays. The fact she ends up winning a Flower House out of one of the main gang bosses (who are some of the big baddies socially), and then ends up having somewhat of a feud with the gang since they feel offended of her not giving them the house back. Somehow they didn’t expect her to want to take her of the flowers and start changing things and their quality of life. I loved her taking on this challenge and using her social skills and all her training to be a perfect wife in high society, for making a flower house work more smoothly, even when she’s suddenly chit chats with some of the other gangs and their bosses and trying to defend herself and come out winning from the boss she won the house from (fairly).

Zagiri’s plot advances much more here, as she realises that the best way to make use of her privilege is to go into politics to try to change things inside the system. But as she finds a position that lets her start making small waves, she also starts accidentally being pulled into a rebellion that is brewing, because people remember her efforts before and how she used privilege to save lives. The story is still challenging her on how she intends to use her privilege but also the definition of what violence is and what paths are chosen for each side and why for some sides violence is not so bad but from the other, anything even close to it is considered bad. Lots of challenges for Zagiri, while also trying to maintain the facade of beign part fo the high society to keep using that privilege.

And finally Siyon, for me in this book his story was the most frustrating. He is missing Izmirlian, which fully understandable, and still trying to understand his new responsibilities, while trying to catch up on this new system and new rules of high society that he doesn’t know how to navigate and now has to figure out on the go. And then there is one of the gang bosses keeps appearing to him and doing cryptic messages (this “mystery” was the one I spoke about that is vague and tries to set itself up but doesn’t do it well enough). , plus the fact mythical creatures are suddenly appearing and people are upset about how the big magic changes in the planes are having cascade effects on their perfectly constructed life and can we please have a fixed world but no consequences thankyou very much. Which is very mcuh how sociery feels like, so this was done well. Siyon’s story here is about how to fit into a new world that demands of you to fix it when you don’t even know what’s broken.

AS we delve deepr into the specifics of each character’s arc, then we do get a slightly more fleshed out wrold for each of their pieces, but they feel a bit too disconnected form each other except when the characters interact or join them in their own way, but it isn’t enough still.

Oh and there is a naga, a djinn, and a dragon, so pretty cool story! Still worth reading and I will see what the last book brings. Hoping for some closure on many items.

Book Review

Moon Reads: Notorious Sorcerer

Posted on April 17, 2026

Notorious Sorcerer by Davinia Evans

Rating:

I have no idea how I stumbled upon this book, but I was delighted when I finally picked it up to read.

This is the beginning of a trilogy and at the time I am writing this book, I have only read the first two books, and will probably pick the third one soon enough because I need to know how it ends.

Notirous sorcerer follows Siyon Velo, who dreams of becoming an Alchemist, a user of high magic, but instead just does errands and causes some fights and chaos to try to scrape enough money to actually have enough lessons of alchemy/magic. But he is more capable of magic than he knows, so he accidentally (because he has a good heart) manages to do something that is technically impossible alchemy wise, which plummets him into high society, and well, poor man has no idea what he is doing yet somehow everyone thinks he does or expects him to now be the one saving the day every time.

We also follow two sisters who end up heavily embroiled in Siyon’s world, Zagiri and Anahid. Anahid is a high society lady, in a loveless marriage to a very famous alchemist who is using her as a way to hide his love and relationship with a man (who has a lot of secrets). And what Anahid is trying her best to do is not ruin her reputation or the chances for her younger sister for when she decides to debut. Zagiri on her own side isn’t too keen to debut, she wants to be part fo the Dockside world, of the clans that patrol it and of the “fun”.

To me, the city of Bezim was a bit vague and was not fleshed out very well, the world building was sometimes a bit like it was floating just above ground but had no tether, so it made the first chapters hard to grasp and get into. So, why did I rate this so high?

Because damn, the characters carry this in a refreshing way.

Siyon is a mess, and he knows it, and is desperately trying to balance the fact he wants to achieve his dream and that he probably never will. Part of his plot puts him in a “what if you achieved your dream right now and it wasn’t exactly what you thought it’d be?”, he is inducted as an Alchemist, but then all hell keeps breaking loose and somehow the adultier adults keep looking to him to fix it. So he keeps finding ways to put a brave face on and try to make it work. He only really shows the reality to Zagiri and Anahid (partly, not fully) and Izmirlian, a curious high society man who wants to achieve his own dream and hopes Siyon might be the key to it.

Anahid starts off slow, trying so incredibly hard to align with the rules of her own class and the expectations of her circle, but making society think your relationship is perfectly fine when it is just a relationship in name is heavy on her shoulders, alongside her love and care for Zagiri and hoping that she can do better than she did. As we go through her story in the first book she starts to find ways to bend the rules or at least find some breathing room. Her question is more of “what do YOU want? how about being selfish for once?”.

And finally Zagiri, she represents a more spoiled high class kid who goes to play in the world of the lower classes, playing but always having a “way” out of some of the bad parts of the lower class challenges. And yet, she starts noticing that maybe neither world fits her. Her own path is less intense and less explored in this book, but is asks the question, “what if you saw your privilege? what would you do with it?”

I also really enjoyed the magic system and the planar worlds, it reminded me a little of the world building Sanderson does for Mistborn, and so, yes, it is a bit different than usual but was interesting and I ketp wanting to understand more as Siyon himself kept learning of it.

I do want to warn that the pacing suffers a little so you’ll breeze through some chapters then get lost in bad pacing and then come back to better pacing. I wish it had a little bit more editing and a little bit more effort on setting the world nicely so Bezim feels more alive and real.

Still, fi you enjoy swashbuckling, magic systems that are physical and planar, interesting various ages of main characters and two female ones, alongside some queerness, this may the series for you.