Kin of the Wolf (Magnetic Magic, Book 3)
Hello, all. Welcome back to our ongoing exploration of the Magnetic Magic series.
Back in the Way of the Wolf review, I stated that this series had only four books. Turns out that I didn’t understand how Amazon’s listings work. There are actually six book in this series, so rather than this book being the semifinal entry, we’re just reaching the halfway point. By the time you read this, I’ve read and drafted the reviews for:
The fourth book, Quest of the Wolf
The fifth book, Curse of the Wolf
The finale, Triumph of the Wolf
My schedule ahead is a bit packed. The multi-part review of The Will of the Many is going to run through October and November, and then I need to do Dragons of a Vanished Moon. However, once’s that’s all done, I will have a free run to tackle the remainder of the Magnetic Magic series across December and January.
Thank you for your patience with the reviews for this series. Now, let’s get into Kin of the Wolf.
STATS
Title: Kin of the Wolf
Series: Magnetic Magic (Book 3)
Author(s): Lindsay Buroker
Genre: Fantasy (Urban)
First Printing: March 2025
Publisher: Self-published to Amazon
SPOILER WARNING
Mild, unmarked spoilers for the entirety of Kin of the Wolf will be provided throughout this review. The first paragraph of any given section will be kept spoiler-free. Any heavy spoilers for this book will be confined to clearly labelled sections.
Heavy spoilers from the previous books of the Magnetic Magic series (Way of the Wolf and Relics of the Wolf) will appear in this review. These will not be marked. I’m also going to assume that you have already read my reviews of both of these books. There will also be a few minor, unmarked spoilers for the later books in the series.
TERMINOLOGY
The names of all these books are rather similar, so we’ll be abbreviating them as follows.
Way of the Wolf (Book 1) = Way
Relics of the Wolf (Book 2) = Relics
Kin of the Wolf (Book 3) = Kin
Quest of the Wolf (Book 4) = Quest
Curse of the Wolf (Book 5) = Curse
Triumph of the Wolf (Book 6) = Triumph
Also, I will be referring to the werewolves in this setting who are capable of assuming a half-human, half-wolf form as “hybrids”. Those of you who have read the past reviews know why.
STRUCTURE
We’ll be covering the same points as the previous two books.
Premise
Rating
Series
Content Warning
Plot
Character
Worldbuilding
Prose / Editing
Romance
PREMISE
Once more, we’re going straight from the Amazon product page.
Luna has recovered priceless werewolf relics from powerful thieves, but they’re still alive—and they can control her new ally, a lone wolf named Duncan.
She would be wise to have nothing to do with him, but he’s handsome, charming, and keeps coming to her defense. Further, with certain members of the pack gunning for her, she needs his assistance. Her cousin Augustus is holding a grudge, and she’s going to have to find a way to deal with him—before he deals with her.
Reaction
This premise is very accurate. The specific milestone along Luna’s journey that she needs to hit here is dealing with the threat Augustus poses. There are couple of new plot threads, and the the threat posed by Radomir and Lord Abrams isn’t forgotten, but the focus here is very much this one specific antagonist.
RATING: 7.5/10
This is another solid episode within Luna’s ongoing saga. Unlike its predecessors, I’d argue that it manages to stick the landing without any major issues. It actually manages to balance out something I felt was a severe misstep back in Relics. The main reason I don’t push this book all the way up to an 8 is that there is some contradictory worldbuilding that interacts with the plot to generate confusing results.
SERIES
For most of Kin, I was underwhelmed. I was of the impression that this was going to be a four-book series, with Quest being the final entry, and Kin simply wasn’t building things up enough for a satisfying finale in Book 4. It wasn’t until I reached the end and was directed to a pre-order page for Curse that I realized my error.
Armed with the knowledge that Kin closes out the first half of the series, I think it is quite effective in that role. Buroker is having Luna resolve one of the original conflicts of the series so that things can escalate in future books without any distractions. She also ends Kin with a clear hook to draw the reader into Quest.
On the note of hooks, I should also add that Kin reads like a book in a series that was fully planned out from beginning to end. We know that the entire series was not written in advance, given Buroker’s Twitter updates on the status of later installments. However, outside of one contradiction that I’ll highlight a little later, you can’t tell that from what’s on the page. Things set up in previous books at getting natural payoffs, and things are being set up here with a clear intent to use them in the future.
CONTENT WARNING
Nudity
I already harped on this issue back in Relics, so I’ll keep things brief here by saying that the handling of this element has not changed.
Buroker has made the inability of werewolves to have their clothes transform with them (and the fact their clothes are destroyed if worn while transforming) into a natural rule of the world. It’s handled consistently. When attention is called to it, it’s treated as a logistical issue that feels true to the characters. At the same time, the way the nudity is paired with the sexual elements makes it feel like the nudity is a gimmick to bait the audience.
Again, I find myself flashing back to the supposed hedonism of the Riders Quadrant in The Empyrean. Even if something is justified with the world, that doesn’t mean it isn’t being used as a parlor trick. Magnetic Magic doesn’t need such tricks. It is good on its own merits.
Really all Buroker would have to do to address this problem is to stop putting focus on Duncan running around the apartment complex naked and stop having Luna and Duncan banter so much about each other’s naked bodies. Just let the werewolf nudity exist separate from the sexuality.
On that note …
Sexuality
Luna and Duncan almost have sex in this book. The intent is there. Luna’s made up her mind to have sex with Duncan. It’s just they get interrupted halfway through undressing. I’ll come back to this when discussing the Romance.
PLOT
Augustus (Heavy Spoilers)
To be perfectly honest, I feel like the subplot of Augustus trying to kill Luna and seize control of the pack was only really good in Way. I’m relieved Buroker made it the focus of this book because, by resolving it, she can drop it from the series.
In Kin, Augustus’s actions make Luna’s life increasingly untenable. Despite being warned to leave her alone in the climax of Way, he and the werewolves loyal to him are staking out Luna’s apartment complex, waiting for a moment when she’s vulnerable (i.e. when Duncan isn’t around to help her). His paranormal protection racket (something introduced in Relics) is also aggravating the various supernatural individuals in Luna’s area, leading them to pressure her to take action against him. Things really get out of hand when Augustus challenges Luna to a dominance battle at her mother’s house, only to set a magical trap so that he can kill her in an underhanded manner. He later tries to kill Duncan by sending him poisoned chocolates (which were made to seem like they came form Luna).
The reason I find this so frustrating is that Augustus does all of this with zero consequences. The dominance battle, in particular, frustrates me, as it highlights the contradiction I mentioned earlier. Augustus very loudly challenged Luna at her mother’s house, flagrantly cheats, and then loses anyway, yet the onus is still on Luna to find evidence that he should be expelled from the pack? How is he not being ejected for being such a obvious failure in the eyes of werewolf traditions? Why does Luna need to go through the trouble of trying to poison him with truth elixir to get him to confess to the protection racket?
With that being said, I do like the climax that resolves this conflict. Much like in Relics, Luna is proactively engaging with problems. She conceives of the truth elixir plan to get Augustus’s confession on her own initiative, using his attempt to poison Duncan to claim she wants to bargain with him for the antidote. This plan goes horribly wrong, but in doing so, Luna has to then keep her head in a crisis and fight her way out, which ends in her killing Augustus in her wolf form.
All together, while I’m happier that this conflict is (seemingly) done with rather than I was with it playing out, I feel like Buroker did a good job at using this conflict to tell a story and to make Luna shine.
What’s in the case? (Heavy Spoilers)
This is a mystery that has lingered since Way. Outside of the hint that is contains some sort of druidic panacea, we haven’t have much hint of what might be inside, since the case is magically sealed. The opening scene of this book features Luna trying and failing to settle the matter using her wolf form senses.
By the end of the book, we know exactly what this panacea is: a metal icon shaped like a mushroom, which heals whomever it touches. The way in which we figure this out is, while not artificial, extremely contrived. During the final battle with Augustus, Duncan (who came along to provide Luna with backup) is cut by a poisoned sword and quickly begins to die. This magically triggers the case, which Luna brought along as part of her effort to bluff Augustus into confessing. Luna then feels a magical compulsion to touch Duncan with the metal mushroom, which heals him.
This isn’t a Deus ex Machina. Buroker did set everything up. It’s just that this scenario is incredibly contrived, weakening the sense of payoff.
Alpha
Since Way, there has been pressure in Luna to take her mother’s place as leader of the pack. This comes more into focus in Kin, but the manner in which it does creates contradictions that muddle the stakes.
Previous books made it clear that the pack was matriarchal. The magical relic that appears to designate pack leadership is held by the alpha female. What's more, while there is a werewolf named Lorenzo who helps keep the pack in line, it's made clear that he is Luna’s mother's lover and enforcer, not the true leader of the pack.
In this book, though, the pack is patriarchal. Twice it’s brought up that Luna can’t be the alpha and that the alpha must be a male.
Where is this coming from?
I feel like Buroker realizes that all the narrative tension about pack leadership goes out the window if Augustus is dealt with and introduced the idea of Luna needing to stake her claim against a patriarchal system in order to keep that going. This doesn’t feel like a good decision. Maybe she can pull it off, but even ignoring the retcon angle, there are two major issues that will make it hard to pull this off in a satisfying manner:
Luna isn’t interesting in running the pack. She’s just trying to live her own life and help her mother out. Barring major character development, she just doesn’t have the necessary motivation to fight against the system.
Duncan is a hybrid. He is far stronger than any normal werewolf. If he’s going to give up his nomadic life to settled down with Luna (and, let’s face it, that’s most likely where the Romance subplot for this series is going), he can take over the pack by force and serve as the enforcer of Luna’s will, just as Lorenzo does for her mother now. If he and Luna never address this possibility, all future conflict of Luna struggling against the Patriarchy is going to feel rather pointless.
Crime & Justice
Early in the book, Luna and Duncan happen upon a robbery as a gas station, with Luna reflexively transforming when she’s shot at. She’s seen doing this. However, it just so happens that the owners of this establishment are part of the paranormal community and are being extorted by Augustus. They track Luna down and ask her to take over Augustus’s protection racket, saying they’ll pay her the money that Augustus now extorts from them if she can deal with the crime the Augustus’s protection racket is supposed to keep in check.
This is a plot thread that doesn’t really go anywhere in Kin, outside of the elements that influence the Augustus plot. The reason it’s here seems to be to set up elements for future books (and it does indeed get more focus in Quest). Within Kin, it mainly serves as an excuse for banter between Luna and Ducan about vigilantism and wearing superhero outfits.
Radomir & Lord Abrams (Heavy Spoilers)
Duncan’s past and the current activities of his creator do not drive this narrative. However, this is a plot thread that does surface at a few points and does significantly impact the ending. It’s clear that this thread will become the focus in Quest.
Early in the story, we get confirmation that Radomir and/or Lord Abrams is trying to summon Duncan back to them using the mind control device from the climax of Relics. This call comes intermittently; Luna can sense it, but it doesn’t compel her. Duncan is safe from it so long as he doesn’t go into hybrid form at any time when the call is being made.
During the dishonorable duel with Augustus at Luna’s mother’s house, Duncan is forced to use his hybrid form to defend Luna. As luck would have it, the call is being put out at that moment. Duncan resists long enough to ensure Luna’s safety before obeying. However, as luck would also have it, he doesn’t get captured. As he explains upon returning to Luna, the call was switched off right as he reached their evil lair, thereby allowing him to change into wolf form and escape.
At the climax of the book, Duncan again uses his hybrid form, and again, the call is going out at the same time. He succumbs again as soon as Luna is safe. This time, he doesn’t return, and the book ends with his status unknown.
I feel like Duncan being captured this way is a massive contrivance. The odds that the call is active both times he transforms into a hybrid while also being switched off at the last minute the first time around feels like the hand of the author at work. It also doesn’t mesh well with him escaping at the end of the last book - why did they ever let him go if they were just going to call him back again and hold on to him? Still, Buroker does set up the mechanic early and play is consistently, so the fact this plays out at the end of the story isn’t a Diabolis ex Machina.
CHARACTER
Much like with the previous book, Kin is a book driven by plot rather than characters, and the characters remain static. Luna, Duncan, and Bolin are the same people they were in the previous book. While Luna remains a very proactive character, the fact remains that she’s dealing with problems that are actively inserting themselves into her life, rather than being driven by any personal motivation. I think the closest thing to a change is that Buroker teases a Romance subplot between Bolin and Luna’s niece Jasmine near the end of the book.
Still, I don’t think this is necessarily a problem. We are still watching the ripple effects of Luna’s character development from the end of Way, when her experiences convinced her to embrace her werewolf heritage again. Buroker keeps events moving and doesn’t leave a lot of slow moments that would need to be filled with character work. It would be nice to get some character development in Book 4, so as to shake things up a bit before the story moves into its final act, but things are still going steady for now.
WORLDBUILDING
Buroker does not add anything new to the worldbuilding in this book. Outside of the inconsistent handling of the werewolf honor code and their weirdness about patriarchy, she sticks with what she previously established and plays those rules straight. That said, there are two points that I feel are worth highlighted, both in regards to the alchemist character introduced in the previous book.
Powers of Hell
The rabbit hole of whether this magical world is either wholly or partially a manifestation of objective, natural evil comes up again in Kin of the Wolf. Buroker answers the question … but also doesn’t really answer it. I find this to be a fascinating case of very good worldbuilding.
About a quarter of the way through the book, the alchemist Luna met in Relics calls her to ask if she has any apartments available. This is her reason for finally agreeing to move, along with Luna’s reaction.
“The tenants in my current complex have grown tedious, and, as I informed you, the landlord blames me for the graffiti that ill-educated and bigoted neighbors leave on and around my door. The kindly but pushy grandmother who hands me bibles is no more welcome. I do not live in sin. I help the paranormal community with their problems.”
“I believe you. It’s common for the paranormal to be misunderstood by their mundane neighbors.”
This exchange of dialogue seems to answer my question, doesn’t it? The alchemist doesn’t think she’s doing anything sinful, and Luna agrees with her. This is played consistently in a similar conversation between the two later in the book. That shuts the door on the issue, doesn’t it?
Except … neither of these characters is a reliable source in this situation.
The alchemist says she is “not living in sin”, and insists that her neighbors are “ill-educated and bigoted”, but we only really have her word to go on here. At best, this may be a belief that she honestly holds, but that doesn’t inherently make it correct. Maybe she genuinely believes that selling her soul in a Faustian bargain is a perfectly natural act that was beneficial for her community. Add to this that alchemy is what she does for a living. She has an incentive to actively brush off the moral implications of consorting with supernatural evil. Her neighbors, by contrast, are only compromised by an instinctive understanding that there is something unwholesome about this woman, much in the same way that we recoil from certain political symbols. (Note that they don’t do this for all spellcasters. We have yet to see anyone expressing this sort of hostility towards Bolin.)
Luna’s not any better as a resource. Remember, her contact with the magical community prior to the start of this series was the bare minimum needed to keep her werewolf powers in check. She simply does not know how various types of spellcasters work, outside of a general association between druids and werewolves. She also has an incentive to blindly agree with the alchemist, since the alchemist has helped her in the past and would be a useful person to have around in the future.
All this is to say that this dialogue acknowledges the question without properly answering it. We can’t actually trust an answer from either Luna or the alchemist in this situation. If this were coming from, say, Duncan, that would be another matter, since Duncan is well-educated about the magical community and doesn’t strike me as someone who’d be that bothered if he found out his werewolf nature was linked to infernal powers. As it is, we’re getting this information from sources we really can’t trust.
This isn’t a flaw in the writing, though. It’s certainly unfortunate that this is connected to lore that might throw the story off its moral axis, but the only reason this question is still unanswered if because Buroker has made this world feel lived-in. The alchemist is unreliable because she exists as a human being who is fully integrated into this magical world. Luna is unreliable because she exists within this setting but lives at the fringes of the magical world, thereby limiting the context that she has to work with. And, while people like me will certain explore rabbit holes, this question isn’t actually integral to the progression of the plot, so the ambiguity isn’t damaging the narrative.
The long and short of it is that Buroker is doing a good job of convincingly creating a world with ambiguous elements and clashing / biased perspectives, despite having minimal word count to work with.
Cost of Living
As Luna is preparing her plan to deal with Augustus, she speaks with the alchemist about acquiring a truth elixir. What follows is an exchange about cost.
“This is not what I called about, but I could acquire the ingredients and deign to make a truth elixir. You know, however, that my services aren’t cheap.”
I did not, in fact, know that. In addition to finding Rue, Duncan had paid for my sublimation potions. He hadn’t mentioned their cost. Since he’d betrayed me, I hadn’t felt compelled to pay him back for them.
“I charge a minimum of $400 an hour, plus travel expenses for ingredient acquisition.”
“Damn, you cost more than a lawyer.” I rolled out of bed and headed to the kitchen, feeling the need for an espresso to get through the rest of the conversation. Fortunately, my machine came on automatically in the morning, so it was preheated and ready to brew.
Rue sniffed. “Those who are competent in my profession are much rarer than lawyers, and I have more than forty years of experience.” She lowered her voice to mutter, “As if you can’t find a lawyer on every street corner, plying his wares.” “They’re not the profession I usually think of as plying from street corners, but I’ll admit they are easier to find than alchemists.”
“Of course they are. It requires no magical blood to file paperwork. My kind are exceedingly rare, and I’m in high demand from those who need my services. I was on the verge of raising my rates to $500 to finance my move.”
If Rue is in such high demand, and she charges so much by the hour, why is she living in a building where neighbors can get away with graffitiing her door? Why is she not in a fancy apartment or condo tower with tight security, or else a townhouse (or, for that matter, a mansion) where she can conduct her affairs without normal humans stumbling in on her? We learn in this book that Augustus is financing multiple fancy houses with his protection racket. Unless this alchemist works only two or three hours a week, why is her own lifestyle not comparably lavish?
This is a small detail, but it does drive the narrative. The alchemist is now moving to Luna’s apartment complex because it’s an affordable means to get a fresh start. This is surely going to have some impact on events in the next three books. (Minor spoilers - her presence is critical to the plot in all three.) There needs to be a better explanation for why she needs to move I to Luna’s complex when she is also making such absurd amounts of money for minimal labor.
PROSE / EDITING
Not much to say here. Prose continues to be polished. The lack of subtlety is still there, but I’ve gotten used to it at this point; it never gets as insulting as what we see in The Empyrean. The only thing I will note is that the type of banter we get between Luna and Duncan seems to pop up between Luna and other characters as well (minus the sexual tension, of course). I found this mildly annoying, but your mileage on that may vary.
ROMANCE
Still Great Chemistry, Still Just Sex
Luna and Duncan continue to exhibit genuine chemistry as a couple. We’re not getting any contrived conflict here to keep them apart. Duncan is genuinely supportive of Luna in her struggles, and she thinks of his safety rather than how she can exploit him. Nor does this romance derail the progression of the Fantasy narrative. It coexists harmoniously with the rest of the story, proving that Fantasy can feature Romance without melting into sludge.
The issue, as mentioned up in Character, is that this is another story driven by plot. Neither character develops, so the romantic subplot can’t advance as a result of them growing close to each other. This means that the only change in this story is that Luna goes from feeling the sexual tension between them to deciding she’s ready to have sex with Duncan.
In other words, while there’s more to the relationship than just sex, the narrative aspect of the Romance is nothing but sex. That’s a step up from The Empyrean (more on that on November 7th), but not by much.
“Offspring”
Something I’ve glossed over in previous reviews is Luna’s mother’s insistence that Luna give her werewolf grandchildren (since Luna’s children with her ex-husband are human). This has included at least one awkward conversation about whether Luna is out of her childbearing years. Emphasis has been put on the fact that werewolf magic stretches the fertility window and that, by not suppressing her werewolf nature, Luna’s body should fall back into that rhythm and buy her at least a few more childbearing years.
From the moment this was first mentioned, I thought, “Ah - so this series is going to end with Luna having at least one baby with Duncan.” Buroker did a similar thing in Fallen Empire, though in that case, it was the Love Interest who had a fertility issue, and restoring his ability to have children was part of him reclaiming his humanity after being a cyborg soldier. The sequel series revealed that he and Main Character had conceived twins after the events of Fallen Empire.
That suspicion blossomed into certainty in this book. Luna’s mother openly talks to her about how Duncan would be a good “mate”, and Luna herself observes that her perimenopause symptoms are reversing now that she’s once again embraced her werewolf powers. At this point, Luna having more children seem almost guaranteed as part of her happy ending.
FULL MOON
I’d say that Magnetic Magic is maintaining good momentum. While Kin of the Wolf is not without its issues, it is still an easy, polished, and satisfying read. If you like Urban Fantasy and want to read something indie, I strongly recommend giving it (and its predecessors) a read.
NEW MOON
Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the fourth book.
Quest of the Wolf is a very messy middle entry. Whereas Way was setup for the series, while Relics and Kin were standalone adventures, Quest is Buroker scrambling to rearranging things for what will hopefully be a big finish in Curse of the Wolf and the sixth book. A formerly minor subplot is thrust into prominence, while the main plot promised by the premise of the book has to resolved by a lot of hand-waving. This wouldn’t have been an issue if the book was longer and has more time to develop both, but Quest is similar in length to its predecessors. The result is that this plot-driven series had a book in an unsatisfying plot.
The full review for Quest coming your way on December 12th. Apologies for the wait. As mentioned in the introduction, we’ll be knocking out all three of the remaining Magnetic Magic books in a row, so Curse of the Wolf will follow on December 26th while Book 6 will be reviewed on January 9th. Thank you all for bearing with me.
STANDARDIZED OPERATIONS
While the rest of Magnetic Magic is a ways off, there’s still plenty of good stuff on the horizon.
Many Words of Praise
The Will of the Many is an Epic Fantasy by James Islington that I hadn’t originally intended to read, let alone. I picked it up purely because I was burned out and needed a book that I knew would, at the very least, be tolerable. What I found instead blew me away.
This book is the first 10/10 to appear on this site. It’s not just an objectively fantastic work of Epic Fantasy. It takes so many of the issues I’ve identified in other modern Fantasy words and turns them into strengths. This book is proof that modern Fantasy books - particularly the Romantasy books - could be so much more than what they are now.
This will be a four-part series, starting October 3rd and continuing through November 14th. There are so many positive examples for us to learn from. I hope you’ll all join me for the journey.
An Island of Disappointments
Before then, on September 26th, we’ll cover Chapters 41 through 43 of The Empyrean.
There are elements of these chapters that I want to like. We finally get an explanation for why Andarna was left behind in Navarre when the rainbow dragons left. It’s not a good explanation, but it’s a starting point. We get characterization for the rainbow dragons collectively that provides a refreshing outsider perfective on Navarre. We also get a confrontation between Violet and Ridoc that makes me really regret that Onyx Storm is a sequel beholden to Fourth Wing and Iron Flame.
Where these chapters fall short is convenience of it. You can see the hand of the author steering things. The way these scenes flow doesn’t feel like a natural progression, nor do the consequences feel narratively rewarding. Yarros is prioritizing the continuation of her desired plot over all else, and as a result, she breaks Ridoc’s character.
Inquisitorial Matters
Next week, “The Unbottled Idol” reaches its conclusion. Thank you to everyone who came long for the ride. If you haven’t checked out the novella, it’s free to read over in Tales of the Five Worlds.
At this time, my primary focus is on finishing the Romantasy novel where Mohsen is the Male Main Character. However, I’m not going to leave you all high and dry for long. My intention is to start posting another novella, this one featuring Aysa Kowsari and a new opponent, starting in November or December, though I’ll keep you all apprised of my progress on that in the weekly newsletter.
Farewell
With all that announced, I want to thank you all for stopping by. Please remember to subscribe for the newsletter if you’d like a weekly e-mail with the latest posts. Please also share this review with others if you enjoyed it. Take care, everyone, and have a good weekend.
