Hello book dragons, hope you’ve had a great start to your weekend! Today’s post is a spotlight and review for the BBNYA 2025 3rd place finalist: Time-Marked Warlock by Shami Stovall.

What is the BBNYA?

The Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 (17 in 2025) finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official.

Page Count: 374 Pages
Genre: Fantasy, Contemporary Fiction, Mystery
Age Category: Adult
Date Published: August 20, 2024
Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/4WRSew3 (Canada) https://a.co/d/0J1UvAN (USA) https://amzn.eu/d/39KJ78b (UK)
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/216683341-time-marked-warlock
The Story Graph Link: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/93640c6e-3ed0-43c3-b013-96c7e3b7aba9

Book Blurb:

“Adair Finch is the most powerful warlock in the world, and one of the best private investigators for hire.

He has dealt with corporate vampires, murderous werewolves, and even fae royalty. Everything was perfect until he lost one case—the case where he also lost his brother.

So Finch retired. From magic. From PI work. From everything.

Bree Blackstone, a twelve-year-old witch, doesn’t know or care about any of that except Finch’s reputation. In the middle of the night, she bangs on Finch’s door. Her mother has been murdered, and now the assassin is after Bree as well.

Reluctantly, Finch agrees to help, only to discover something sinister has been brewing in town while he ignored the world… He’ll need to dust off all his old skills and magic before it’s too late.”

Author Bio – Shami Stovall

My thoughts:

It’s been a while since I’ve read a contemporary fantasy novel as I usually gravitate towards high or epic fantasy adventures but this didn’t impact my enjoyment of Time-Marked Warlock at all!

Stovall doesn’t waste any time in kicking off the action and building up intrigue for the reader. We meet Adair Finch, a dishevelled ex-detective warlock, early in the morning when a young girl calls for his aid in finding her missing father and mother’s killer. He isn’t interested until he realises Bree’s mother is a witch and one of Finch’s old friends. The mystery unravels and twists from there in a dramatic and fast-paced journey following elusive killers, witches feuds and untrustworthy magical creatures.

One of the more interesting aspects of this story is Finch’s time-based magic. His ability to rewind time to a set marked point, up to but no more than 24 hours, is the driving force in the forward momentum of the plot, adding complexity and solutions when our cast find themselves in tricky situations or dried up leads. The magic used by other warlocks, witches and magical creatures is familiar but differentiates enough to still feel original.

I don’t want to give too much of the murder mystery away in this review because it really is exciting and definitely worth the read! I look forward to following Adair Finch and his detective adventures in the rest of the series.