Steeped in steamy Toronto summers in the future, Blook Like Magic by Liselle Sambury combines witches, technology and Caribana in this story of family.

Voya is a young witch ready for her Calling, a task set by the ancestors in order to receive her power. When it comes, she is tasked with the impossible, destroy her first love or the course of the family’s magic will be changed forever. Plus she only has until Caribana to complete her task, one month. In one month she must fall in love and kill that first love. Along her path to completing her Calling, she uncovers long held family secrets and prejudices in the Black witch community that could bring down the entire family.

Liselle Sambury has created an alternate future grounded in the present. If you are from Toronto, the landmarks and the street names will be very familiar. I appreciated the story being set somewhere concrete, someplace I could picture in my mind with places that I have often visited. The year is 2049 and the world seems familiar and different all at the same time. There is a comfort for myself as a reader to have that grounding in the present. When stories get apocalyptical, it can be anxiety inducing so I appreciated the familiarity of the setting of the story.

I loved how the story started with Voya getting her period. There are still very few books that will even mention this normal part of growing up. It’s integral to the narrative as the Bleeding is the precursor to the Calling and sets the stage for the entire story but it also serves to demystify the whole thing. People menstruate and it’s not gross or weird, it’s natural and the more normalized it is in stories the less mysterious it becomes.

Liselle Sambury provides some great description and also has really sharp dialogue. The interactions between all the characters, leave readers wondering who is out to heal and who is out to harm. Liselle Sambury kept me guessing the whole way, kept me wanting more and more of the Thomas family story. I’m so excited to read on in the sequel, Blood Like Fate available August 9, 2022.