I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish!

The story was fast paced, but not exhaustingly so, and never felt like it had any dead moments. The inclusion of spanish dialouge was enjoyable (I don't speak any spanish myself) and for me made the story more immersive. I liked the magic system used, and would have loved to sit in on Pablo's lesson. Pablo was an interesting character with a depth, hubris and flaws to him that made him just as much likeable as it made me want to smack him upside the head, and tell him to just dip out and catch a break. Poor man went through a lot in these pages!

Some of the side characters had a bit of a "filler" quality to them, where they were probably meant to have a deeper impact. I think that might have been that there isn't enough pages in one book to give them more space. Both Hellas and Espinoza come to mind, but I felt this particularly in the case of Georgina; As much as her impact and importance to Pablo was introduced, the space she was given wasn't enough to give me a sense of closeness to her. When the closure between her and Pablo happened I didn't really feel anything, even though I recognised the impact the author was going for (doing my best to say this without giving spoilers). If this had been a duology, and the side characters had more space to introduce themselves and their importance/influence in Pablo's life, I think the story would have greatly benefitted from it. I personally wanted to know a little more about them.

And though I had hoped for a different ending - the one provided was a bit anticlimatic and left something to be desired - I was left with a question I thought worth pondering; did Pablo end up fulfilling the mastermind's plan behind the grand plan after all? I see what you did there author.

Thank you to NetGalley, Marcus X. Figuerola and Bannermen Books for the eArc, it was a treat to read.

Mayhem! Magical chaos, indeed! This was fun! I say chaos, but more accurately, it’s a world with a rich magic system, that has many aspects, and many possibilities for using it. We also meet a lot of varied characters, including non-humans, which adds to the chaos, but many of those character strands are woven together eventually.

Anyway. Loved the prologue. Great humor and setup. (There is humor throughout but also a few spots that were gory or sad.) I loved the school and the different disciplines of magic. (I would totally take a class from Pablo.) And as I read, I was thinking that exploring the disciplines and seeing more of the teachers would be a good way to continue this if it became a series. Also the magic lends itself to pondering some moral questions. Also loved this for being in Miami with Cuban-American culture and some Spanish.

I enjoyed watching the plot unfold, it was a fun story and at one point it was so exciting that I had to make myself slow down to pay attention, haha. I wish some of the relationships were a bit more developed. We do really get to know Pablo, and info about his past was smoothly integrated. But otherwise it seems more about the action. Which is fine, there is a lot going on, that probably keeps things moving.

The ending surprised me a bit but I thought it was highly fitting. :) Although it did change how I was envisioning this as a possible series, haha.

Figuerola has crafted a fabulous urban fantasy tale that hooked me from its first page. Free of the genre's worst tropes, Figuerola masterfully weaves magically mundane worldbuilding, well paced action, introspective flashbacks, and a touch of mystery in a story that loves Miami like only a local could.

Dr. Diaz lives in a world of demons and dissertations, trolls and traffic, ghosts and gangsters. Cell phones, due to their personal connection to their owners, turn out to operate inadvertently as phylacteries, requiring special care around evil spirits and the like. The book is sprinkled with these deliciously interesting intersections of the magical and the mundane (always my favorites in sci-fi and fantasy).

After a fantastic prologue written in the style of an anniversary news broadcast, we're dropped into the perspective of Professor Diaz. He lives in a Miami where magic has returned and you can even major in it at FIU. Like Harry Dresden before him, Pablo is stressed and overworked, principled and passionate, carrying more than his fair share of cares.

Pablo is a fighter, but he's no superhero. There are real, tangible limits to what he can do with magic and a physical cost to every one of his choices. Every action sequence is accompanied with creative uses of magic and real consequences, both for Pablo himself and the residents of Miami. Often the solution to the problem isn't "punch it harder with magic", and it's incredibly refreshing to see a protagonist approach problems more like Vision than Captain America.

I could gush for paragraphs about this story and our main character, but I don't want to say more to rob anyone of getting to know him the way I did (or to have to hide this review behind a spoiler tag). Suffice it to say we get to see Pablo on his worst days, and the way he responds to the various challenges and his personal history with the rest of the cast gives depth to the character and makes him feel like a real person.

The only thing that keeps this from being a five-star review is a somewhat unsatisfying ending. The climax itself is great, but the epistolary epilogue attempts to wrap up everything a little too quickly and neatly.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bannermen Books for an advance digital copy of this novel!

Thank you for allowing me to review this.

I overall enjoyed this book. Magic City Mayhem takes a logical, clever approach to magic. The combination of modern day takes on magic, combined with historic takes on magic through Pablo's practice was refreshing. I appreciated seeing the classic healing spell we all were taught as a kid used in here as well ;)

I liked the bilingual aspect of the novel, but some of the translations felt a little lacking in context. Otherwise it was very easy to understand and great practice for someone learning spanish.

I think that the characters were all VERY well fleshed out. That seems to be the biggest strength in the novel. Each character had a distinct personality that you could feel through each book.

Figuerola weaves a beautiful story in here. I can hear the music playing when Pablo goes through the streets. I can feel my stomach tie in knots when he makes questionable decisions to exact his form of justice.

I liked the ending, I felt like it made sense for his character. Not every hero needs to have a fantastical ending, I felt like this was fitting for Pablo. Overall this was pretty good to me. Sometimes it felt like the author was trying to tie some ends up, but otherwise this was good! I found it humorous, unique, and sharp.

From the first pages of the novel when we learn that twenty years earlier the dead rose from their graves all over Miami, made a quick Home Depot run funded by sunken treasure and built the College of Practical Arts I was hooked.

This was a wild ride!

Magic City Mayhem tells the story of Pablo, a Necromancer and popular professor at the College of Practical Arts.

Despite being a powerful wizard, Pablo faces very relatable problems. He’s a constant disappointment to his traditional Cuban-born father and he’s drowning in medical debt. In his quest to solve these problems he takes on any work he can find and wouldn’t you know, the local friendly mob sees value in his abilities to locate people and question the dead.

Increasingly desperate, Pablo starts to make a series of sleep-deprived and morally dubious decisions that seem to set Miami on a path towards total destruction.

Suddenly all manner of dangerous magical creatures from bloodthirsty orcs to a fire breathing dragon are ravaging the city he loves.
As the air crackles with increasing magic and the boundaries between dimensions thin, Pablo needs to get his priorities straight and determine what he’s willing to sacrifice to save Magic City from the mayhem he’s helped unleash.

This was such a refreshing take on urban fantasy! The author really brings the multicultural tapestry of Miami to life with a hodgepodge of diverse characters, translated Spanish dialogue and mouthwatering foods and drinks.

The traditional principles of magic are laid out clearly and I would be first in line to enroll in one of Pablo’s courses. Anyone who has studied witchcraft will recognize the foundations of magic in this world. But the author also does a fantastic job weaving modern technologies into the story in surprising and poignant ways. I’m definitely looking at my cell phone a little differently now.

Figuerola did a great job of taking familiar elements of fantasy and mythology and then turning them slightly on their head so that the world felt so easy to visualize, but the story still felt wildly original.

I truly loved this book and I’m dying for more of this world and Pablo’s story in the future.

There were absolutely times when I started to feel like, wow this is about to be a five star read. But three things kept it from crossing that threshold: uneven pacing, the often cavalier disregard for human lives and a lack of clarity that was especially noticeable at the end of the book.

Sometimes the book barreled forward at 200 miles per hour, but then it would slam on the brakes to give us a flashback scene so we could understand Pablo’s baggage. This absolutely added to the mayhem, but if more of the character building had happened earlier in the book the story could have flowed better and probably had more emotional impact because we would have known the characters longer.

And when Pablo was doing battle with many different magical creatures it was very tense and suspenseful like an action movie or video game. But as Pablo grapples with emergency after emergency, a lot of faceless bystanders lose their lives. I don’t love these types of action sequences where people are mowed down with relatively little reflection on that grim cost. I know the human toll keeps the stakes high, but I prefer more value placed on the lives of even fictional people.

And finally, the book often moved so quickly, that sometimes I got confused. The ending especially felt rushed and lacked clarity. Even after rereading it twice, I still have questions.

I think my issues with the book can probably be attributed to the fact that this is a debut novel. As Figuerola becomes more experienced I have no doubt he will work out pacing and clarity.

I would recommend this book to chaos magicians and readers who like fast-paced urban fantasy with witchcraft, morally dubious characters and gremlins whose idea of a good time is dismantling a server room.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bannermen Books for an advance digital copy of this novel! Four plus stars

"I wish I was the wizard that arrives precisely when he means to. My clients deserve punctuality, since I allow them to speak to the dead one last time. But Miami is a death sentence for timeliness."

In the opening paragraph, Figuerola has given the reader three things that capture the essence of this novel; geeky protagonist of a certain age, necromancy and Miami, a place that is as vibrant and significant to be its own character.

Pablo Diaz is head of the Necromancy department at the College of Practical Arts in Miami. Founded by a lich just 20 years prior, the mandate of the school, as far as Pablo is concerned, is to allow talented magic practitioners the ability to learn and hone their art to make the world a better place. Even if some of his colleagues are happy to exploit their magic to make scads of money in one way or another, Diaz is a teacher first. He is also up to his eyeballs in medical debt for his father’s poor health. It’s taking a toll and he takes on extra jobs to make ends meet, hence our first introduction to Pablo is rushing to a job to help people speak to their deceased loved ones for one last time.

Pablo is kind of a mess of a human being. He is really good at what he does, loves teaching and he believes in the work, even though he is constantly berated for his choices, by his father to his colleagues, who think his talents are wasted in necromancy, to the general public who have a general disdain for the dark arts. The chancellor of the school, the aforementioned lich founder, thinks he is wasting his greatness. Pablo is full of self doubts and past mistakes. He is stuck in a cycle, always running behind, always a bit short. His friends have moved on. His relationships have failed. His father would prefer he had a real job. He takes on a new client that he knows is a bad idea, but does it anyway, and trying to clean up that mess just leads to a bigger mess. For anyone having an existential crisis when hitting their 30s, Pablo is scarily relatable.

All this story takes place in Miami, among the Cuban American culture Figuerola describes the food, family,history, language and community with such love and humour that gives the novel a real heart. While the plot line is not unusual for a paranormal fantasy – lots of magic gets unleashed on a unsuspecting populace, with our protoganist the only person with the key to stopping it – the city lore and colour elevates the story to a new level. The city is magical, beyond the magic as used by its practioners, as if the city was chosen because of what it is, not just a location.

To those readers who appreciate a deep world building on the use of magic you will not be disappointed either. The author descriptions of how the magic works, as well as the different schools of magic is detailed and consistent. I suspect the author has spent many hours studying the magic in D20 rulebooks which will delight the gronyard geeks, while also dropping in fun folklore and magic Easter eggs – references to Gygaz and Arneson, and an appearance of my favourite witch, Baba Yaga.

If there was one thing that kept this from reaching a full 5 stars was the feeling that everything was stuffed into one book. There was so much story and deep lore going on here that could have been spread out into different adventures. There is so much potential here for a Harry Dresden type of a series, with a far more likeable protagonist and a city and culture that is rich with ideas. The ending puts Pablo in an interesting position, which I am sure could be worked into many more episodes. I hope that Figuerola is looking in that direction because I would love to read more!

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.
4.5 stars in Storygraph