Among the Unseen by Jodi McIsaac (The Thin Veil #3)

Summary: Cedar, the new Queen of Tír na nÓg, is trying to adjust to her new life and new powers.  But all the Unseen (the magical creatures of Earth) have started dying. 

The Thin Veil trilogy is one of the increasing numbers of books published by 47North or one of Amazon’s other publishing imprints.  And I think it is fairly similar to the others I have read, better than most self published books, but still not quite to the upper levels of quality of all books.

The Thin Veil trilogy follows Cedar, her daughter Eden, and others through discovering that the Celtic gods were actually an immortal race from another world, and that Cedar is the lost daughter of the last king.

Similar to Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series or the Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott, this is a modern look at ancient mythology.  But the Thin Veil series is adult fiction (although I would have read it as a teen and I don’t really have any content warning other than some sexual innuendo.)

This is a good light beach read fantasy.  Nothing heavy, but not terribly original either.

The main story arc of the third book is about the sickness and death of the magical creatures on earth.  There was an ancient spell that protected the creatures from humans as long as humans believed in them.  But now that humans have stopped believing in them, they have started dying.

This idea is interesting in light of Charles Taylor’s ideas about secularization  in James KA Scott’s How (Not) to be Secular.  Taylor suggests that the common story of a falling away of belief in the supernatural is an inadequate explanation, but rather the rules of what is possible to believe in have changed.

But the explanation here is more about the church actively working to put down belief in magical being and other gods and when possible actually capturing and getting rid of those beings.  This isn’t a big focus of the book, just the reason for some of the action.  But it is an interesting side issue.  It is not unlike the premise of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (although that was a much better book and less directly against the Christian Church and faith.)

Overall, the story was satisfying, a fine summer read, but nothing special.  It was however, free with narration if you have KindleUnlimited.

Among the Unseen by Jodi McIsaac (The Thin Veil #3) Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook (KindleUnlimited With Narration Book)

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