2.5 stars. This was a reasonably interesting story about a witch community and its politics, but I wasn't exactly impressed with the author's voice/writing style or the characters themselves. I've seen some reviewers make comparisons to the Harry Potter universe, but I didn't really get that feel since the main character happens to like dealing with humans more than witch politics, and so we follow him mostly in the human world. 
 So we have Killian, the Witch Master, the strongest male witch of his generation (that we know of), who is being forced to marry a female witch of great power to "help save their race" from being diluted with human bloodlines. Only, come to find out, that's not what's really happening, someone just wants all the witches to think that's the case. The stigma of "mudbloods" from the HP universe is pretty much the same here among the purebloods, though. 
 Neither Killian nor Lavendar want to marry each other, Killian because he's gay, and Lavendar because she's in love with a human. But they've been taught that sleeping with humans will deplete their power, so they stay away from their respective love interests to do their duty to the witch community. Only Killian can't seem to stay away from Blaine, a physics professor at his university. 
 I didn't understand their insta-attraction, and it was a turn-off, quite frankly. Killian seemed to think that Aloysius, his familiar, had something to do with amplifying the attraction, but whether he did or not, the intensity of their attraction felt completely unnatural and there was no reason why I should have believed it existed (e.g. there was no "soulmate principle" in effect to cause me to believe they would be so helplessly and instantaneously drawn to each other), and it started before the spell Killian cast, so I didn't buy that as a reason either. 
 I liked Jimmy and Lavendar as characters. And Aloysius was quite interesting as Killian's familiar. 
 I didn't like the author's particular writing style. The short. interjections. got on my nerves. after a while. Killian didn't feel particularly masculine to me, either, and he's not a particularly effeminate character to begin with. So, while the blurb from the second book in the series sort-of appeals to me, I don't think I'll pick it up any time soon. The third book doesn't really appeal to me at all, which is why I'm comfortable leaving this one where it is and not picking up no. 2.