If you recognize Victoria Laurie’s name, it’s probably from her Psychic Eye or her Ghost Hunter mysteries. She kicks off the Magical Trinket series with A Trinket for the Taking.

Dovey Van Dalen is eager to celebrate her 200th birthday, but her boss has an assignment for her. Dovey has been bound to mystic Elric Ostergaard since she was eighteen when he won her in a card game with her father. Normally, no one would challenge Elric and his powerful wife, Petra. They hate each other, but together they rule North America. Now, someone has stolen the powerful Pandora’s Promise trinket from a visiting diplomat. The trinket forces a person to kill themself in the method they fear the most. And, its loss while the diplomat was in Washington, D.C. threatens Elric and Petra’s reputation.

It’s Dovey’s job to track down the thief and retrieve the trinket. When an art gallery owner, a member of the Ariti family, dies in a fire, Dovey is sure he’s a victim of Pandora’s Promise. But, once she’s at the scene, she encounters an FBI agent, Grant (Gib) Barlow who suspects she knows more than she’s telling. Although there’s a great deal of sexual tension, Dovey has to hide her magic and power from a man she’s attracted to. And, a second death in the Ariti family causes more trouble.

Why does A Trinket for the Taking remind me of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files? Perhaps it’s because Dovey is bound to her boss, and owes him allegiance. Perhaps it’s because the mystics and the magical beings bound to them hide their powers from ordinary humans, the unbound. There’s just something about this intriguing magical book that reminds me of Butcher’s wizard, Harry Dresden, and the magical world in Chicago.

If you read Dovey Val Dalen’s adventures with its deaths and magic, let me know what you think, and if you see a resemblance to Butcher’s books

Victoria Laurie’s website is https://www.victorialaurie.com/

A Trinket for the Taking by Victoria Laurie. Kensington, 2024. 288p.

FTC Full Disclosure – Library book