A Mage's Guide to Human Familiars

R'iyah Family Archives, Book 1

By: AJ Sherwood

Narrated by: Tim Paige, Michael Ferraiuolo, Greg Boudreaux

One mage: Bel Adams–part demon, gun shy about being rejected by one again, needs a familiar.

One familiar: Nico di Rossi–Army Ranger, needs a change of pace and a new purpose in life, is a golden retriever in human form (though not literally).

Plus one familiar: Garen Dallarosa–Secret Service, part gargoyle, needs his ex-lover Nico back.

One second chance–all for the taking.

©2022 AJ Sherwood (P)2022 Podium Audio

Fun but timeline is wack

If you want a cheerful gay romp with some (kinda off page) monster fights, this is decent fun. There’s also an unapologetic triad, so bonus points for that. All the featured characters are like-able and eager. But pledging eternal troth within days of meeting, while also being colleagues with an age gap is concerning. This story should have taken at least 6 or 8 weeks or even months to play out and it happened in that many days. I eyerolled hard every time someone said “finally” — my dude, you’ve known each other for 47 minutes; there is no history to suggest “finally” is an appropriate time descriptor for a new action you’re just getting around to. It’s fun but there’s no real tension because there’s nothing keeping any of them apart other than them just having met 48 minutes ago.

Basically a fun book but could have used a more reasonable timeline, had more together time, and more magic details, and been a stronger offering.

Worldbuilding: A bit thin. Not being over saturated with detail is fine, but even my “I don’t need battle details” could have stood to see a few more battle details, or at least some reasoning behind why it’s ok to remove the protective spells on what could be a Big Problem. My biggest gripe is the speed with which this triad came together then jumped into both work & play, in part because of the familiar bond. Like, they’re not even fully moved in, have literally 1 day of (failed) training before going out on a job when policy gives them 6 weeks to settle in? Don’t make rules then immediately discard them. Either don’t write that rule in or have a better reason for breaking it than a known mid-grade hazard. Then all the interruption? I wish there were either better reasons for delaying/interrupting or less delaying. The sex scenes were fun, they didn’t need to be cut off to make this story work. The sex didn’t drive the tension and it didn’t have to. It could have happened earlier then got more inventive with how to incorporate a third, or ramp up the 19yo’s experience rather than just “ok we’ve done it now, we can be in loooove”.

Steam: Medium-Hot, M/M/M. There’s a fair amount of descriptive action on page action thru the back half the book. Consent isn’t badly done but it’s a 19yo employer with his 30-something employees that just met 49 minutes ago so while I don’t have a problem with quick hook ups, the almost immediate “I love you forever” with this person I met 50 minutes ago is now “as important to me as my ex of 5 years that I still love” wasn’t sold as well as it maybe could have been.

Narration: Good performers. Solidly done.

Perfect for my mood

I always enjoy AJ Sherwood books. There is good writing, engaging yet unusual characters, humor, romance, and sexy times. What’s not to like? I think my favorite series so far are Jon’s Mysteries and R’iyah Family Archives. I’ve read this book once and just finished listening to it for the second time and was completely struck by the sense of joie de vie that permeates this book. Nico’s character is probably one that might make you crazy in real life…but how fun to hang with him and Bel and Garen. I laughed out loud when another character describes him as a golden retriever puppy. So apt. The angst level is low (which I prefer right now) and the world is fascinating and fun. Instead of one major challenge facing the characters, there are several smaller ones and it was a great way to introduce this world of magic use and get introduced to our MC’s. I was tickled by the almost over-the-top magical challenges. They felt a bit tongue-in-cheek…but like we were all enjoying the ride. AJs humor really hits the mark for me. Thank you, thank you for your books.

Love

This is one of my favorite books right now. It’s fun, light, I love the relationship dynamics between all the characters.

low angst fun

I love this book, series, and author! AJ almost always promises low angst fun and a little steam to spice things up.

The only thing I dislike about the audio version is that Garen's narrator sounds like an actor from the 50s rather than having a current-century accent. Not at all how I imagine Garen would sound. He also talked MUCH slower than the other narrators, and I had to speed up the recording for his chapters. It pulled me out of the story every time. Luckily, he didn't have as many chapters as the others.

So Much Fun and Snuggly Goodness

Looking for a familiar should never be as painful an experience as it starts out for Bell. And then when he does get 1 familiar who wants to stay, the guy brings in his ex boyfriend. As things progress, it is clear that it going yo take more than a summoning to keep these three bound together.