The hero needs to find a legal heir to his property and castle before his evil neighbor takes control of it. His search leads him to the Malcom estate and to the heroine who is searching for her long lost family. Instantly the hero becomes enraptured with her. Despite the fact that she turns out to be the daughter of his enemy, he claims her as his own and only considers leaving her when his gift threatens to hurt her and his half brothers. She's everything he's looking for in a woman. She's soft spoken, demure, levelheaded and luscious. The hero is described as a mountain of a man with big muscles and a towering frame but not traditionally hansom in his features. The heroine thinks he's the most gorgeous man she's ever seen. The two fit together quite nicely. The heroine is calm and collected while the hero is passionate and has a tendency to roar and shoot when irritated. It did irate me how the heroine changed into a copy cat of all the previous heroines in the series, with her stubbornness and complete inability to keep out of trouble. I don't like my heroines to be that type of person and I found myself liking her less and less as the story went on. That being said, the lovemaking scenes were super passionate and filled with so much love that it made my heart flutter. Like I said, the characters balanced each other out and it made for a very nice story, ( )

I really liked this book! It’s a fine magical romance where magic is real as in gifts, ghosts, and premonitions. I had not read any of Patricia Rice’s other books, and was concerned that this wasn’t the first in the series, but it didn’t matter. The story flowed from start to finish. The women are spunky and real. The men a little thick, but oh well. It had been a while since I had read a, “Happily Ever After” story. It was very refreshing. I've picked up some of her other books on the Kindle to read next. ( )

Finally! Aidan's story! I've been waiting for this for a while.

Aidan has been the mysterious relative of the Malcolms--or is it the Iveses--throughout this historical romance series about two families with magical gifts. He has a habit of coming to the characters' aid and then disappearing, always disparaging those magical gifts and denying any suggestion that he might have gifts of his own.

And that's how we find him at the beginning of Magic Man--minding his own business, until he's summoned to the aid of the Malcolms, and the itch on his nose leads him straight to their visitor, Mora, who's being attacked by brigands.

Mora, for her part, would love to have magical gifts, but doesn't believe she does. Still, when her adoptive parents dies and she'll have to leave her home, she sees no harm in trying A Spelle for Trubble in the Journal of Lessons her mother left her.

The answer to her troubles comes in the form of an invitation to stay at the Malcolms' country estate, and the man who saves her from attack, and who seems to be able to make the earth move--literally.

Aidan is also on the verge of losing his home to a greedy aunt who insists his illegitimacy makes him ineligible to inherit. Making matters worse, she intends to expand her coal mine, destroying the homes of his tenants.

As he searches for some other heir or some way to protect his land and people, it becomes more and more difficult to deny his heritage and his magical gifts, particularly with Mora around, who's developing gifts of her own, and also discovering her own heritage.

While I enjoyed the magic/paranormal aspects of the story, what made it exceptional for me was the characters and their romance. Both Aidan and Mora are complex characters, and both are dealing with similar issues, though from different angles. They're both dealing with a loss of their homes, a lack of family, and the possibility of magic talents. And just as their magic talents complement each other, so do their family and home issues, making Magic Man satisfying both emotionally--because I cared about the characters, and intellectually--because the story fit together so completely.

Unfortunately, Magic Man is the last of the series. I'm going to miss the Malcolms and the Iveses, but kudos to Ms. Rice for not drawing a series out until it gets dull. I'm going to have to check out her other books--in my experience, a talent like this for characterization and satisfying romance plots carries over to other sub-genres. ( )