The writing team of C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp are no strangers to world-building and intriguing urban fantasy. In Magic’s Design, the first title released under the Cat Adams name, they create an intricate world partly rooted in folklore, as well as having magical qualities all its own. A modern-day woman with a healing gift finds herself drawn into a magical world that exists alongside the Earth we all know and finds herself having to work within a world she never knew existed in order to save all.

Mila learned Ukrainian folklore, as well as the egg-decorating craft of pysanky at the hands of her grandmother. She loves the artistry of the decorated eggs as well as the process of creating them, but she has never believed that the eggs might have magical uses. It also did not occur to her that the magical tales she learned as a child would have roots in reality – or that the healings she attended with her grandmother could really be magic.

Mila’s perceptions change when two men find their way to her home in search of her mysterious roommate and an escaped prisoner. Tal has come from the magical Rohm Prison, from which the dangerous prisoner has escaped. Mila witnesses magical events caused by the escapee in her own home, but she understandably still has difficulty believing that Tal has come from a magical realm to retrieve a prisoner who threatens the safety of both Earth and his own world.

Despite Mila’s reluctance to accept the reality of the magic she’s heard hints of throughout her life, Mila finds herself working with Tal to find the prisoner and discover why the Trees of Life are dying, a death that could extinguish all the magic in the world. Their journey is an action-packed one, full of complex (and very cool) world-building, magical illnesses, and new discoveries.

The battle against good and evil and the detailed world-building in the book greatly appealed to me. The mixture of Ukrainian folklore with elements drawn from both modern life and created by the authors made for a very vivid setting. The team obviously put a great deal of thought into their creation and the magical and earthly world blend together quite smoothly in most respects.

Tal and Mila also have an interesting relationship for the most part. I had some difficulty with Mila as a heroine because she seemed to complain overly much at times. Her situation is a difficult one and she takes a rather long time to adjust, but her attempts at bravado did not always resonate with me. Still, the relationship arc made sense to me. These two don’t have a Romanceland “love/lust at first sight” type of bond. They have to learn to work together and to respect one another’s abilities. This is a huge deal for Tal as well as Mila. After all, Tal has worked in the magical realm his entire life – it must be difficult for him to see someone with power as great as Mila’s who has no idea how to control or respect her magical abilities.

With an interesting quest as well as a page-turning story about the battle between good and evil, Magic’s Design is a wonderful first book for the Cat Adams name and marks an entertaining new direction for this writing team. The story flows well and, even with some quibbles, I enjoyed the experience.