Born of Illusion Review

Title: Born of Illusion
Author: Teri Brown
Release Date: June 11th 2013
Publisher: Balzer and Bray
Source: ARC for Review
Rating: 3

Anna Van Housen is thirteen the first time she breaks her mother out of jail. By sixteen she’s street smart and savvy, assisting her mother, the renowned medium Marguerite Van Housen, in her stage show and séances, and easily navigating the underground world of magicians, mediums and mentalists in 1920’s New York City. Handcuffs and sleight of hand illusions have never been much of a challenge for Anna. The real trick is keeping her true gifts secret from her opportunistic mother, who will stop at nothing to gain her ambition of becoming the most famous medium who ever lived. But when a strange, serious young man moves into the flat downstairs, introducing her to a secret society that studies people with gifts like hers, he threatens to reveal the secrets Anna has fought so hard to keep, forcing her to face the truth about her past. Could the stories her mother has told her really be true? Could she really be the illegitimate daughter of the greatest magician of all?

Review:

 

When I discovered that Born of Illusion took place in the roaring 20's I was immediately intrigued. The 1920's is one of my most favourite eras in history. Unfortunately Born of Illusion didn't end up being as amazing as I had hoped, it was still enjoyable though.

 

Overall Born of Illusion had a great concept surrounding a main character, Anna, who is said to be the bastard daughter of Houdini, who herself practises in magic. In her case it's not all trickery, Anna does have some surprising magical powers that she can't explain. I felt like Born of Illusion ended up being your typical physic power paranormal YA novel with the exception of taking place in the 1920's. In sort it lacked creativity a bit.

That being said I did very much enjoy Teri Brown's writing, it was very well done with just the write amount of detail. I loved Anna as a main character, she's a very physically and mentally strong female character who get into weird situations caused by her occupation and mother. There is a bit of a love triangle, usually I don't enjoy love triangles very much but this one was great since you have no clue who she will pick up until the very end. Both guys are very hot as well which helps.

Born of Illusion is a setting dependent novel this gives the illusion (see what I did there) of being in the 1920's emphasised through the speech. Although it didn't live up to my expectations I would still recommend it if your looking for a historical paranormal novel.