I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley to facilitate my review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Unexpected Magic by Jude Knight Series: Many Kinds of Magic #1
Published by Dragonblade Publishing Inc on 06/16/2026
Genres: Fiction / Fantasy / Historical, Fiction / Fantasy / Romance, Fiction / Historical / General, Fiction / Romance / Fantasy, Fiction / Romance / Historical
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Unexpected Magic is the first book in the series, Many Kinds of Magic. It is set in the Regency era of another universe—one in which magic is real and has never faded out of the world. And that changes the history of the United Kingdom and the time of the Napoleonic wars in ways both subtle and obvious. For some relevant touch points regarding the historical changes, see the author notes.
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Jasper Thornton was just a child when his mage-gift first surfaced—a powerful gift that delighted his relatives and won him recognition as heir to the Duke of Findlater.
Twenty years on, he is still failing to live up to that early promise, his power still strong, but erratic and unfocused. Now the despair of his family and of the London College of Mages, he has been reduced to running errands for the duke and the Crown.
Cordelia Nettleford is the ordinary daughter of a couple with only sufficient magic to cling onto the fringes of the peerage. Her parents’ hopes and dreams are fully invested in their only son, her younger brother.
Everything changes when Delia wakes up one morning to find that a dragon has hatched out of a hen’s egg and eaten most of the flock. The following explosion of magical manifestations centered on Nettleford Manor includes the birth of a unicorn. Delia is selected as the unicorn’s maiden.
Sent to bring the unicorn and its maiden to London, Jasper discovers that Delia has one of the rarest gifts of all—and England’s enemies want her and her effect on others.
Falling in love with a lady set aside as the unicorn’s maiden is almost as futile as his unstable mage-gift, but he can’t seem to help himself. He is enchanted by her calm competence, her sense of duty, and her intelligence. He will just have to adore the lady from a distance and do everything he can to protect her.
And another historical romance novel has now been read – but this one was most definitely a fantasy romance. Unexpected Magic takes place in the Regency/Victorian era of the UK, but not in our universe or history. No, Ms. Knight created a bit of alternate history and a different universe – one in which people and animals are born with magic. She gives a wonderful explanation of her thought process and how she created her magic system and alternate history at the end of the book – which I was tempted to skip over but was glad I had not.
Characters
Unexpected Magic has a wonderful cast of characters, although our story focuses on two of them mostly: Jasper Thornton and Cordelia Nettleford.
Jasper is a wonderful character – a man with a mage-gift that is powerful but wild and uncontrolled. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. You don’t get a lot of his background, but honestly, that’s all right. While you might be curious as to what has shaped him as a man, it doesn’t detract from the story and I found it didn’t really matter to me. He was an engaging character and quite funny as well. He’s also not exactly what he seems, but for that, you’ll have to read the book.
Cordelia, or Delia, is another wonderful character. Spending the majority of her life believing she has no magical gift and therefore being relegated to keeping the chickens and trying to find a good husband, she’s dreamed of having an adventure. Which, she gets in spades in this story. She has a secret even she’s unaware of and once it makes itself known, the story really gets going.
Atmosphere
Set in the days of the Napoleonic wars, we are thrust in the UK – but in an alternate timeline. The Welsh are fighting England, the French are fighting England, the Scots have fought England, and magic is flying everywhere. We have dragon lords (rare), mages, sorcerers, witches, a convent of nuns dedicated to three female warrior saints, and magical creatures such as unicorns, dragons, lindwurms, pegasus, and more. It’s an amazing atmosphere for the book and I loved it.
Writing
Ms. Knight’s writing style is fun, easy to read, and quick to move through. If you look at Goodreads, you’ll see it took me a bit to read the book. That isn’t because of Ms. Knight’s writing! It was because my brain couldn’t focus on any book for more than a few pages for a couple of days.
I appreciate that Ms. Knight uses closed door romance for the sexual aspects. Again, I’m not completely opposed to sexual scenes, but I prefer a bit of a cleaner book in that regard. Ms. Knight made it very clear that the reasoning for the characters falling in love was not because they had a sexual relationship with each other like so many other romance books do.
Plot
There isn’t too much I can say about the plot without giving away spoilers, so all I will say is that this plot, with its alternate universe and history, was amazing. It was fun, it was intriguing, and I was very impressed with it.
Intrigue
Despite being a historical romance fantasy, there are still mystery elements to the story. There are things that happen that need to be figured out, enemies who need to be uncovered. In fact, there is a mystery element to the book that isn’t resolved in this book – but that’s fine by me, because there are eight more books to come in the series.
Relationships
The main relationships you see in this book are the relationships between Delia and “the babies” – a collection of magical creatures that Delia takes care of – and Delia and Jasper. The relationships between Delia and the babies is more or less perfunctory, as time goes on, the babies seem to need her less and less.
But the relationship between Delia and Jasper is amusing. They’re smitten with each other, yet it isn’t obvious to either of them that the other is interested in them. And oh, the blunders Jasper makes… you’ll laugh at him and be frustrated right along with Delia. But that’s all I’ll say.
Ending
It might seem like the ending is rushed and unsatisfying at first. But you have to remember that this is a series. There’s more to come and I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of our friends Jasper and Delia. Personally, I was happy with the ending because I knew it was the first in a series. Had I not known that, I might not have been quite as enthusiastic about it.
All in all, I enjoyed this book a lot and gave it 5 stars as it was a book I’d love to read again in the future.
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