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Magnus Flyte
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City of Dark Magic: A Novel (City of Dark Magic Series) Paperback – Illustrated, November 27, 2012

by Magnus Flyte (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 628 ratings
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Cosmically fast-paced, wildly imaginative, and with City of Lost Dreams—the bewitching sequel—on shelves now, City of Dark Magic is the perfect potion of magic and suspense
 
Once a city of enormous wealth and culture, Prague was home to emperors, alchemists, astronomers, and, as it’s whispered, hell portals. When music student Sarah Weston lands a summer job at Prague Castle cataloging Beethoven’s manuscripts, she has no idea how dangerous her life is about to become. Prague is a threshold, Sarah is warned, and it is steeped in blood.

Soon after Sarah arrives, strange things begin to happen. She learns that her mentor, who was working at the castle, may not have committed suicide after all. Could his cryptic notes be warnings? As Sarah parses his clues about Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved,” she manages to get arrested, to have tantric sex in a public fountain, and to discover a time-warping drug. She also catches the attention of a four-hundred-year-old dwarf, the handsome Prince Max, and a powerful U.S. senator with secrets she will do anything to hide.

And the story continues in City of Lost Dreams, the mesmerizing sequel, which finds Sarah in the heart of Vienna, embroiled in a new web of mystical secrets and treacherous lies.
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Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 2
    City of Dark Magic Series
  2. Print length
    464 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Penguin Books
  5. Publication date
    November 27, 2012
  6. Dimensions
    1.1 x 5.1 x 8.2 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0143122681
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0143122685
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Cleverly combining time travel, murder, history, and musical lore, this is a breezy, lighthearted novel. Sarah Weston is researching her Ph.D. in neurological musicology in Boston when a letter arrives summoning her to Prague. Maximilian Lobkowicz, the heir to the ancient Lobkowicz fortune, is planning to turn the family palace, located within the Prague Castle complex, into a museum; Sarah's job will be to establish the relationship between one of the first Lobkowicz princes and Ludwig von Beethoven. Sarah is warned that Prague is a threshold to dark magic, passion and violence, and she suspects that mysteries await. And how. A little person gives Sarah a pill shaped like one of Beethoven's toenails that allows her to move through time, encapsulating many centuries. She not only sees Beethoven but also several of the dead Lobkowicz princes; Tycho Brahe, the 16th-century alchemist; and also Nico, who was at that time called Jepp and is now 400 years old. Plucky, impulsive, and reckless, Sarah is determined to discover the identity of Beethoven's Immortal Beloved, and time and again she's a hair's breath from death in dangerous situations. Tensions rise when Sarah's Boston violin pupil, 11-year-old blind musical prodigy Pollina, arrives in Prague and warns Sarah about forces conspiring against her. Complicating an already tangled plot, an evil senator from Virginia with the U. S. presidency in her sights schemes to kill anyone between her and some incriminating letters she wrote to her erstwhile lover, a KGB officer, while she was CIA. In a story that abounds in mysterious portents, wild coincidences, violent death, and furtive but lusty sexual congress, Flyte (the pseudonym for TV writer Christina Lynch and Meg Howrey, author of Cranes Dance) also offers a veritable guide to Prague that includes such historical references as Rabbi Loew's golem, the Golden Fleece, the Holy Infant of Prague, and a vault under St. Vitus Cathedral, where Sarah and Max find themselves in a tense denouement that promises a sequel. (Dec.)

From Booklist

The darkly charming and twisted streets of Prague provide the deliciously dramatic backdrop for this paranormal romp that fires on all cylinders, masquerading by turns as a romance, a time-travel thriller, and a tongue-in-cheek mystery. Summoned to Prague to the Lobkowicz Palace, located inside the cavernous confines of the Prague Castle, to archive Beethoven’s manuscripts and, perhaps, even to unlock the secrecy surrounding Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved,” musicologist Sarah Weston seizes the opportunity of a lifetime and never looks back—except when she begins time-traveling, of course. Before she even arrives in Prague, bad things start to happen, such as the suspicious suicide of her mentor/predecessor at the palace. What follows is a pulse-pounding adventure, as Sarah, with the aid of a powerful mind- and time-bending drug, zips through the centuries in search of clues that will unlock a timeless musical mystery. --Margaret Flanagan

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Illustrated edition (November 27, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0143122681
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143122685
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.1 x 5.1 x 8.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 628 ratings

About the author

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Magnus Flyte

Magnus Flyte

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Biographical details about Magnus Flyte are sometimes conflicting. He appears to have operated under several identities, and may have ties to one or more intelligence organizations, including the CIA and a radical group of Antarctic separatists. A copy of the manuscript of City of Dark Magic, written on stationery from the Hotel La Mamounia in Marrakech using a manual typewriter, was received by mail at the offices of Penguin Books in New York in January 2012. It was postmarked on the Isle of Mull. On the back of the envelope were some marks in pencil: "snow bunting, whooper swan, loch torr, tawny owl, cailaich." It is not known if Magnus Flyte himself, who has shown an interest in the migratory patterns of terns (but not buntings), mailed the manuscript, or a birdwatching friend simply mailed it from there while on vacation.

After the uproar over the publication of City of Dark Magic, Mr. Flyte retreated to his dacha in the Urals, where he enjoys exploring underground tributaries of the Ufa, observing the mating habits of the spotted nutcracker, and smelting. It is there that he penned the sequel to City of Dark Magic, City of Lost Dreams, using a fountain pen and scraps of vellum. Penguin editors reported that the first draft smelled strongly of sheep and vodka.

Mr. Flyte is currently at work on a half-hour television comedy about sixteenth-century ethnographer Sigismund von Herberstein, entitled Ural I Love.

Meg Howrey and Christina Lynch are the women behind the man who is, or isn't, Magnus Flyte. Howrey is a former dancer with the Joffrey II and the winner of an Ovation Award. She is the author of the novels The Cranes Dance and Blind Sight and lives in Los Angeles. Lynch is a television writer and former Milan correspondent for W magazine. She lives near Sequoia National Park in California.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
628 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

TheChelle
5.0 out of 5 stars Sex, Drugs, and ... Dwarves?
Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2015
Verified Purchase
Here, in the land of politicians and military establishments (aka, the DC/NoVA area) there is a unique form of commuting called 'slugging'. People park at the commuter lots nearest their homes and then DCoMproceed to stand in line, waiting for a ride north (or south when returning home). For the driver, it allows for free rides on the 95 Express Lanes recently installed into our heavily wooded areas and suburban living. For the rider, it gives free rides to and from their place of employment without the stress of having to drive in the wretched vile of horribleness that is traffic on the 95 corridor. I am one such individual, happily waiting in line to get rides so that I do not have to wish longingly for a bottle of something that will take away the homicidal urges that erupt when I am forced to drive into the city.

In these blessedly stress-free minutes, I am also given liberty to do something extraordinary for an employed mother of four: I CAN READ!

More importantly, I can finish the books that I start instead of having to send them back to the library unfinished. eBooks - the marvel of the commuting world!

I have finished one such electronic marvel without feeling like I was forcing my way through the end (something that happens far too often with books I pick up recently). I have had the exquisite pleasure of reading City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte. It is a very quick, whimsical intrigue that wraps itself in a cloak of inferred history and masterfully worded fiction. There is treasure hunting and music, sex, murder, illicit drug use via toenails (read, it makes sense, I promise), and so much more! Every word had me wanting more. I was never - not once - bored with the narrative or the story being unraveled before my eyes.

It's sequel is already loaded onto my Kindle app so that the saga might continue.

I rarely recommend books these days as I find many of them to be quite trivial. This one is one I will recommend to anyone who likes romance, fantasy, and intrigue. Even if you only like one of those, the book is still sure to entertain.
2 people found this helpful
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Stacy
4.0 out of 5 stars Too Much Fun!
Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2013
Verified Purchase
Originally posted at TheNovelLife.com

From the first quote, even before the opening page, I was captured. Sarah is working on her Musicologist PhD. when she is contacted for an exclusive job in Prague. As she’s deciding if she wants to accept the position, strange things start happening. A ”little person” presents her with a small copper box then disappears; the apartment she shares with super-sexy hunk Alessandro is broken into with nothing taken ~ only a symbol left on the kitchen ceiling; and then worst of all ~ she is informed that her beloved mentor has committed suicide and was the musicologist on hand at the castle she is to report to in Prague. With all of the strange happenings, she must go.

Allow me to interject a note here ~ I thought I was starting a young adult novel ~ the cover is what threw me. Don’t get me wrong ~ I really like the cover; it just appeared more YA-ish to me. And then I read the novel and realized all of the symbolism on the front cover….but it still looks YA-ish. Truly, my only issue with the novel.

I finally figured out I was NOT reading a YA novel when Sarah meets her colleagues for the first time at the shared dinner in the castle’s kitchen and let’s just say her stress, angst and jet lag were all wiped out in one brief interlude in the bathroom. At that point, I do believe I kicked off the covers, sat up a bit more and really started paying attention to what was going on! ;-)

To say City of Dark Magic was a fun read would be quite the understatement! The historical aspects seemed well-researched and read truthfully. The cast of characters are quite diverse and bring with them a touch of humor (ok, more than a touch). It’s a smartly sarcastic humor that’s thrown in times least expected, which, I believe, made the novel. The sexual anecdotes also thrown in when I least expected were hilarious and at times true to form. The mystery along with the magical realism kept me captivated and glued to my recliner until I read the last sentence.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Ellen Arnestad
3.0 out of 5 stars Fun but not well written
Reviewed in Canada on September 10, 2016
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The characters were interesting and captivating, but leads were not well followed. The writing wasn't great. There were many things that never made sense.
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Carmen L. Trankovsky
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun Read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 20, 2014
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City of Dark Magic is a fun book to read - especially if you know Prague and some of its history - I recommend it!
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DER KUNDE
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Reviewed in Germany on January 19, 2014
Verified Purchase
Das Buch ist spannend, unterhaltsam und vor allem klug geschrieben. Prag als Stadt wirklich toll dargestellt - der Fortsetzungsroman spielt ebenfalls in Prag und in Wien. Musikliebhaber kommen voll auf ihre Rechnung.
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S. Jones
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 24, 2015
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Book itself is quite tacky to be honest.
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LitLover<3
2.0 out of 5 stars Even worse writing than Dan Brown and EL James.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 13, 2016
Verified Purchase
From the blurb this book sounded right up my street, a bit of magic, Prague, and an intelligent heroine; however, it turned out to be one of the worst written books i've ever read. The writing is poor and so disjointed that I decided to look up the author, to see whether they had received a head injury, and wasn't surprised to find that it is actually written by two people. There is also a ridiculous amount of gratuitous sex scenes, so much so that I actually wondered if I had picked up some third rate Fifty Shades of Grey - and I say third rate because the repetitive nature of the writing is even worse than that of EL James. If you are looking for this type of book but a million times better, please save yourself the trouble and read 'A Discovery of Witches' by Deborah Harkness
One person found this helpful
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