Book Review | Born of Illusion by Teri Brown

Series: Born of Illusion #1

Format: ARC

Source: Won

Publisher: Balzer & Bray

Publication Date: June 11, 2013

Pages: 384

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Anna Van Housen helps her medium mother Margeurite do stage shows and seances in 1920s New York. Possibly Houdini's daughter, she can sense feelings and see the future. Frightening visions show her mother in peril. New downstairs neighbor Cole introduces her to a society that studies people with gifts like hers. Sorting truth from illusion yields her destiny.

To be perfectly honest, if I hadn’t won Born of Illusion I probably never would have picked it up, not because the blurb didn’t sound interesting but because 99% of the time Historical Fiction and I do not get along.  But surprisingly, I really enjoyed this book.  I adored the mystical and mysterious world of magic and mediums that is Born of Illusion.  

Anna Van Housen has always assisted her mother in her mentalist stage show and séances.  Not only is Anna a great magician, but unlike her sham of a mother, Anna actually has physic abliitles.  She’s able to sense what people around her are feeling and she can also see the future.  Anna has always tried to hide her abilities, because if her power hungry mother found out she would use Anna in any way that she could in order to increase her own status and wealth.  

I thought Anna was a very easy character to like; she smart, nice, determined and extremely talented. However, I really hated  diskliked Anna’s mother.  She’s domineering, controlling and not to mention the fact that she’s a scam artist.  I also didn’t like the way that she would sabotage Anna’s magic act whenever she was mad at her or when she felt like Anna was outshining her, although at the end of this book she redeems herself a little.  I loved Mr. Darby and I really wish that he could have been a bigger part of this book.

There is a little bit of a love triangle in Born of Illusion, but it was easy enough to choose who to root for because one of them I did not trust at all and as it turns out I was right not to trust him.  

Although Born of Illusion is a historical fiction and a little obvious on who the ‘bad guys’ are, I still really enjoyed reading it.  Would I have enjoyed it more if it wasn’t historical fiction? Probably, but I would still recommend this book to those of you who enjoy the historical fiction genre.