Born without magic, Mackenzie Little has few prospects. In a futile attempt to break her out of the null caste, her mother ropes her into participating in a charity auction, where anything can be bought with enough money. She never expected her ex-boss would buy her company, but for one day, she lives a fairy tale.Nine months later, despite their precautions, Mackenzie’s little miracle is born.… miracle is born.
Armed with Texas pride and New York viciousness, Mackenzie must fight through hell or high water to protect her family of two from a society obsessed with the magic they lack.
more
Love her books
In the distant past magic rose and the world crashed – taking the United States with it. At some point powerful family talents took power and created the Royal States from the areas they organized out of the chaos. They retained the US names although not necessarily the boundaries – for example New York contains Maryland. At the time of the story everything has settled down – no zombies, no screaming thugs – but magic is power and being without magic [a null] makes you less than nothing. And, of course, our heroine is a null…
I enjoyed the story although the romance was mostly at the fringes of the plot. She’s a strong woman and fights for the rights of nulls [and apparently a few other minorities] throughout the book. I loved the humor – she’s definitely someone you would like to know.
FYI Susan Copperfield also writes as RJ Blain and Bernadette Franklin.
There apparently is some confusion about the Royal States series of which this is a part of. The author in NO WAY supports, defends, nor encourages child marriage, child betrothal, etc. IF you actually read the stories she continually points out how damaging these practices are to children. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of humor in these novels. She has created a fantastic world but she has, I think, in a carefully crafted manner points out how awful the act of childhood betrothol is. Please don’t miss out on a wonderful series by reading some review by someone who actually hasn’t read the books. I have the series. I’ve read the series (multiple times). All of the Royal States novels are good reads.
To Tia the Majestic (from my email of 28 March 2018):
Please tell your human that I, for one, love Null & Void. I enjoyed the amazing female character, who overcame so much, to become so much. I personally have a real problem understanding anyone can comment or try to fix a social justice issue without creating context for it, but I am sure the loud negative persons causing your human such distress have found a way to do so.
A solid read for a rainy day.
Great story and very likeable characters . Couldn’t put it down.
I am somewhat conflicted about this book. I enjoyed reading it, I might even read it again sometime. It was a fun read, with great characters and dialog. The cute quirkiness of most of the major characters is a Hallmark of this author (for all of her pseudonyms). The plot was decent. Not earth-shattering but with enough twists to feel as though something actually happens)
The worldbuilding is barely adequate at best. There’s enough info for a reader to get a feel for things, but it falls apart miserably if you actually try to think beyond the superficial levels. I think the author just wanted royalty at any cost and so she kludged this together as quick as possible. We’re told that the world is violently prejudiced against nulls (nulls are the magicless minority). But then when we are shown the elite that run the world and make all the rules, they mostly are completely free of prejudice. I suspect The author has a “Royalty” fixation. She wants to have everything about the Royals be pure and idyllic. But that is at odds with the premise of the story, so she simply pretends that it isn’t.
To me, having a good, coherent world that feels like something that could actually happen is important. This doesn’t have that.
But still, the writing is good otherwise (well, there are an ungodly number of typos, but aside from that).
The fantasy magic element of the world is almost as null as the main character. It’s all just a thinly veiled excuse for having a king of Montana. But if you can get past this then it’s a good story and worth recommending.
I loved the characters and they stayed with me a long time. But what I really loved is Susan Copperfield created a new world, on top of our old world but now with Magic! And many of the problems that we face today such as discrimination are being addressed there