The Golden Age of Magic

Golden Age of Magic #1

by Luanne G. Smith

Against the backdrop of 1920s Hollywood, a young fairy godmother on a mission is embroiled in malicious magic, mystery, and murder in a thrilling historical fantasy by the bestselling author of The Vine Witch.

Celeste is about to become one of the thirteen Fées Gardiennes, a centuries-old sisterhood of fairy godmothers. To be granted full status, she must usher her first protégé onto their path of destiny. Where better to find a starry-eyed ward than in the land of magic and illusion called Hollywood?

It’s 1927. The moviemaking business is booming when Celeste befriends a young studio seamstress whose dreams outshine everyone else’s. Rose is talented and underappreciated and could use some enchanted intervention in her life. Plans proceed swimmingly, and Celeste even catches the eye of a handsome producer. But after a series of unexplained accidents on the studio lot stir up rumors of a curse, Celeste fears the trouble is more personal―the spiteful meddling of a fellow Gardienne out to thwart Celeste’s success.

But the sabotage turns sinister when a starlet is murdered and it’s Rose who stands accused. As vengeance, dark magic, and betrayal wreak havoc, Celeste must come into her full power to save her innocent protégé and secure her own future in a cherished, ancient, and now threatened sisterhood.

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Mystery, Magic, Historical Fantasy, Historical

248 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2025

About the author

Luanne G. Smith is the Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Vine Witch series, The Raven Spell books, The Witch's Lens, The Wolf's Eye, The Golden Age of Magic, and The Gilded City of Dreams.

(*Scam Alert* SHE IS NOT ON FACEBOOK or other social media, and she does not sell or recommend marketing or writing advice online. It is a scam.)

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Reviews

[Mary Mac]

The plotline has a lot of promising potential but the execution was so, so poor. I read the entire thing out of sheer curiosity to see if it could get worse and indeed, it did. It's been awhile since I've read something this poorly written.

Predictable, full of cliches, several loose ends and unresolved plotlines, decisions and events presented with little to no explanation, and written like a teenage author's first novel. I spent many chapters truly stunned that the characters were taking so long to figure out who the mystery antagonist was. I understand wanting to create suspense, sure, we don't want the mystery solved in chapter two. But if the readers can figure out the mystery, but have to trudge through another eight or ten chapters of the characters blindly ignoring the obvious... Well, frankly, the reader gets bored and the characters just come across as dunces. Kind of counter to the whole "strong independent woman" vibe the author seemed to be shooting for (and missing).

One star is generous and it's due solely to the plotline. French fairy godmothers in 1920s Hollywood? A really creative idea that could potentially become a riveting book. If only it were authored by someone with better vision.

[Liz]

Overall Vibes: 1920s Fairytale
Hot Sauce Scale: 0 (no romance / dropped romance plotline)

The Golden Age of Magic is a short, quick, inoffensive read. I picked it up off Amazon First Reads this month and breezed through it. The story follows Celine, a Fées Gardiennes (Fairy Godmother), who leaves 1920s Europe and travels to the Fée-less country of America because she has upset another Gardienne. This is meant to be a fresh start for Celine and a chance for her to usher her first protégé into a Happily Ever After. With no other Gardiennes currently in America, she has her pick of fresh talent and wishes. She decides to find a dreamer in Hollywood after getting a postcard in the mail mistakenly. She finds a young seamstress with tons of potential working at a movie studio that is experiencing terrible, unnaturally bad luck and decides that she will be her first protégé.

There are some twists and turns and some unexpected developments. I have one major end-of-story nitpick and will begin light spoilers here.
We do not get resolution for the movie studio or owner Nick West. The meddling of the skulk caused major accidents and misfortune at the studio. With the skulk removed by the Gardiennes, does the studio recover financially? It really seems like a romance plot was dropped between Nick and Celine. I understand not wanting to have a romance plotline in your novel, as it can be cliché when shoehorned in, but if it's introduced, at least resolve it.

I personally thought that Anaïs's views on society were a bit too modernly described for the time period. I do not believe that the term "patriarchy" was used in that specific context until at least second-wave feminism. Based on other historical mentions (the first talkie coming soon, the Great War, liquor being illegal), this book has to take place after 1920 but before 1927. Women would have just recently gotten the right to vote in America. I could easily see Anaïs having strong views on women's suffrage and her feminism reflected through that lens. But instead, her depiction is modern and lacking any historical context. I thought this was a miss, especially in the development of Anaïs’s character.

Finally, the biggest nitpick of all nitpicks. I think the author used the word "infamous" when she just meant "famous":

Everyone knew about Dorée’s first protégé. He was infamous. Several of the artist’s paintings hung in the Musée d’Orsay for all to admire. He was gone now, outlived by his benefactor, but esteem for the man had been engraved in time.

I sat there seriously trying to figure out who an infamous painter could even be. I had a moment where I thought to myself, "Did Dorée train Hitler?!?" No, it can't be. This is too early in the timeline for that. I tried my best to use other context clues, and I think the painter being referred to is Renoir. I can't even comprehend how Renoir would be considered infamous, especially in the context of someone commenting on him in the 1920s. I know this is a really stupid tangent, but I spent way too much time trying to figure out if Dorée had mentored some sort of pre-Hitler Hitler because of the word "infamous" being used here. My brain could not stop focusing on this. I am so sorry.

Overall, this is a quick read with an interesting concept and likable characters. I think some more time could have been spent wrapping up some loose ends, especially because the book is so short. It would not have hurt to have an extra chapter to bring some more resolution or to complete introduced storylines.

[Hades ( Disney's version )]

oouuuuu.. this was goooooooooooood!

Like really REALLY good

Old Hollywood meets a fairy godmother finally being the FMC??!! SIGN ME THE FU$K UP!!!!!!!! Oh , OH, ANDD she gets the cutest fuzzy side kick?! Yes PLEASEEEE

This was such a a fun and creative read all around

[Vegannic]

Well I didn't think this was great at all. Basic story and written in the style that bugs me, where they explain the story in their dialogue, which is just irratating as people don't talk like that in real life haha. It's a bug bear of mine when reading books. Had the concept to be a great book but I just found it boring.
Read as a Kindle First Reads free book of the month

[Paul Pope]

Could not finish. Languished over this tome for months. It’s to easy to get distracted when the story gives you nothing to focus on.
Cannot recommend.

[Crystal Palmisano-Dillard]

I dnf'ed at 60%.

At first the sweetness of this story was a draw. I like the original concept of modern (okay slightly more modern) fairy godmothers, but Celeste's naiveté became grating. It got to the point of stupidity. To the point that I didn't want her to succeed. Maybe I'm a grump. But here we are.

I think a bit more depth of character, feelings other than confusion, might have helped.

[The Man from DelMonte]

I couldn’t get on board with this at all. Some of the ideas underpinning the story are good but the set up was unconvincing. It might be lovely and romantic to start off in Paree but it makes no sense because straight away the FMC is dispatched to Hollywood.
There are epochal events happening in Russia, China, India and elsewhere but instead a quarter of their order decamp to the American west coast in order to counter a threat to the nascent film industry?
The Fee Gardiennes are very parochial given both how powerful they are and how limited in numbers.
The author’s work is variable. When she’s up, she’s up (The Vine Witch, The Raven Spell) and when she’s down, she’s down.

[Kristin]

This book needs a lot of reworking. The animals were the only characters I liked. Extremely predictable. Loose ends. Boring. I just didn’t care about finding out what happened and would have DNFd this if I hadn’t been reading it for a book club. The stakes were never high enough.

[laurakellylitfit]

In 1927 Hollywood, where illusion and ambition collide, Celeste, a fairy godmother-in-training, must prove herself by guiding a young woman toward her destiny. She finds her protégé in Rose, a talented but overlooked studio seamstress. As dark magic and betrayal swirl around her, Celeste must unlock her full powers to save Rose and secure her place in a centuries-old order of fairy godmothers.

Narrator was great! Thank you to NetGalley and 47North for the ARC!

[Lea]

4 ⭐️ I got this as an Amazon First Reads last year and finally got around to it. I have read all of her books so far and have an ARC of the sequel which I will be starting shortly. I like her writing style. I enjoyed this one. The idea of fairy godmothers is fun. Celeste is a well rounded character and loved the storyline. I felt like I was in old-timey Hollywood. There's magic, mystery, mayhem, murder, other magical beings, betrayal, bonds, friendships, and more. Yes I would recommend this if you like a short, historical fantasy.

[Miranda]

a perfectly fine book just not my favorite

[Joanne Lebrun]

Cute read. Fun to experience 1920s Hollywoodland (was the at the original name for Hollywood for real?) from Fee Gardinere (fairy godmother meets guardian angel) perspective. Loved the story and I was drawn to read it each time I had a minute. Recommended! I’ve read a few Vine Witch books (first one is always the best) but as this is also a series I’ll atleast give book 2 a try!!

[Beatrice]

What if the Fairy godmothers that attended Sleeping Beauty's birth, were real and living still in the 1920's, long past the era of royals but still able to bestow 'gifts' in the way of help in succeeding at a person's dream - a prince to love happily ever after, a brilliant career, etc.

We begin with Celest who is sort of a junior Fee Gardienne who while not yet receiving her full powers, is exiled to America to find her first protege to put on the path of success, thus ensuring her own successful transition to full fledged member of the sisterhood of the Fee Gardienne.

She heads to Hollywood which makes sense as this has always been a place of magic and dreamers. There she finds Rose, a young seamstress with dreams of designing her own costumes and fashions, toiling away at West Coast Studios. Everyone swears the studio is cursed and yet a being whose whole raison d'etre is magic, dismisses the curse talk out of hand, even when she feels an eerie chill (which is the Fee kryptonite). She is casual with her powers despite not being full fledged and is far to careless about her magical self care. But of course she is, otherwise how could she find herself completely depleted and magic free at exactly the very moment everyone needs her to step up.

Everything is overly telegraphed, the bad guy red herring is too obvious and the others are too overtly dismissed. For powerful magical beings, they behave too often as 'silly women' who are easily taken advantage of. Anais getting drunk and spilling all her secrets to the unworthy Edward is both stupid and told to us after the fact. So much of this story is just told to us as an afterthought, we aren't really invited in.

And then the dropping of the protegee storyline and the murder of the star of the movie was disappointing. Why spend all that time in the wardrobe department with Celest aging costumes and Rose working on beautiful gowns if her story was just completely dropped only to be tied up with an off hand comment that she wins an Oscar. The story of the murder and the state of the studio and Nick's career is just forgotten.

Goodreads has the title with a parenthetical indicating that this is #1 which helps explain why this book felt so thin and dashed off. This was about setting up a world in which fairy godmothers exist; they rely on sunlight and gems for power; they have evil counterparts that like to inflict misery and use cold to trap and harm the Fee. This was not about telling a good complex and well developed story. Really disappointing.

[Charlene Mattson]

A Nice Riff on Fairy Godmothers

This story is a very good riff on the fairy godmother stories. Interesting characters, a twist, and lots of magic; this is well worth a read!

[Teri]

This book was a June ARC from Prime First Reads. Overall, I feel the story has potential and I wonder if this is going to become a series (or at least a trilogy). There's very little backstory about the Fees Gardiennes or any of the individual sisters. The character development is minimal. I think it could be fleshed out with follow-up books. The plot was interesting, but left a lot of unanswered questions due to the short length of the story. It would have benefited from a slightly longer, more detailed length. The writing style was decent, but dragged a bit at the beginning and then felt rushed at the end. I'd like to see the story continue with a few more books that address these issues.

[Alexandra]

Sounds like an interesting plot

[Opal E]

I loved the idea of this book, fair godmothers at the centre of the plot? 1920s Hollywood? French touch? The exploitation and realisation of dreams? What could I possibly not love?
And the cover is just superb, I was really excited.

And then I struggled through the first chapter, the writing was so bland and the character so lacking in personality. Then we get this lukewarm second chapter where the "problem" is presented and its kind of "meh", especially since our flat main character barely reacts... and then we're hit with a third chapter where the magic is just crazy overpowered and I wondered why I was bothering reading this. I have only limited hours in my life and more stories to discover than could fill hundreds of lifetimes.

I was very disappointed by the quality of the writing, especially its lack of any voice or emotion. I could not force myself to continue and cannot recommend to anyone.

[Stephanie]

This book is a cute historical fantasy. I was hoping for an epilogue with a little more interaction with Celeste and Nick either as more of a goodbye or continuing the relationship, but I see there is a book #2 so hopefully that will be included! In contrast I loved that the dreams being fulfilled were not all just marriage, and that Celeste rejected that idea for her first protege.

[Chelsea]

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy

The Golden Age of Magic by Luanne G. Smith is a third person dual-POV historical fantasy set in the golden age of Hollywood.

I thought this take on fairy godmothers was really interesting. It was a whole new direction that still stuck to the original role fairy godmothers play, particularly in helping people achieve their happily ever afters, while forcing them to head to America, a country on the brink of prosperity while Europe is on the brink of war. Celeste being a young fairy who has not actually achieved godmother, or Gardienne, status quite yet allows the reader to see how one becomes a Gardienne and the risks that come with failing their target or protegee. Unlike a lot of fairy godmother tales, true love doesn’t play a part here and is not the main role they play, as helping their protegee achieve renown and a legacy is given equal wait as helping them find a love match.

Anaïs’s POV is not as frequent as Celeste’s but it helps add another layer to the role of Gardienne as Anaïs follows Celeste. The two of them also have very different animal companions and different feelings regarding the move from Europe to America, especially given Celeste is much younger than Anaïs. Of the two, I did prefer Anaïs’s POV, mostly because she felt more fully formed and active within the role she had.

I would say that this moves at a slower pace and is somewhat worldbuilding forward, but more in terms of Hollywood and the time period rather than the fantasy elements themselves. Celeste goes to a studio and chooses a young costume designer, Rose, to be her protogee, leading to her seeing a lot of what is going on in the background as she tries to help Rose reach her full potential as a designer rather than finding her protegee a love match.

I would recommend this to readers who love both fantasy and Old Hollywood and fans of fantasy with fairly minimal romance

[Cari]

The Golden Age of Magic was my Kindle First Reads selection for June 2025..

The Golden Age of Magic by Luanne G. Smith is a historical fantasy taking place in Hollywood during the Roaring Twenties. The main character is a young fairy godmother in search of a talented young protege to help guide to fame and fortune with her magical influence. Celeste has arrived in America on the run from a vengeful fellow fairy godmother, one of the Fées Gardiennes, a sisterhood of fairy godmothers she aspires to join after successfully completing her first mission and finds her protege in Rose-- a talented young seamstress who works at a studio helping to sew costumes, but dreams of being a fashion designer; however, the studio where Rose works seems to be cursed. Celeste soon comes to fear that the troubles she tried to leave behind in Europe have followed her across the ocean to continue their quest for vengeance, but things may be even more complicated than they first appear and darker magic may be afoot...

This book was creative and entertaining enough, but I just didn't love it either.

[Shannon]

I was provided an ALC via Brilliance Audio and Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

Set in 1920s Hollywood, this follows Celeste, who is essentially a junior fairy godmother out on her first solo mission. She left France when another of her order felt slighted and her mentor felt it was best for her to leave the country until tempers settled. She is in search of her first protégé to nudge them to greatness with their inherent talents. In Hollywood she is drawn to a talented yet unknown seamstress working hard on the set of a movie. She also finds darkness and chaos on the set, which makes her mission more complicated than anticipated.

I thought the author did a good job explaining the magic. The sisterhood of the Fées Gardiennes and their counterparts the Skulks were also well explained, though it does take until the end of the book to get the information. This has a slight romance subplot, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Perhaps that develops more as the series progresses. I anticipate we will get to know Celeste more as well as the series progresses and she grows into her role as a full fledged Fées Gardiennes. I'm anxious to see how the series progresses and learn more about the other members of the order.

Overall I really enjoyed the plot and the concept of the book. The narrator did a good job with the story and the characters.

[Timothy Burbage]

I really enjoyed some parts of this story, and really didn't enjoy others.

I enjoyed the world building of there being fair godmothers who looked after artists and members of the European royal families in marriages and love stories, just like the fairytales. I liked the detail of since WW1 Europe had changed so drastically that there weren't many royal families left.

I enjoyed the setting of 1920s Hollywood and I got the glitz and the glamour. I liked Rose as a protege, though I wanted to spend a lot more time with her.

I enjoyed the way that the fairy magic worked, and how powerful the glamour could be. Disappearing at will, being able to talk your way in and out of any situation, giving good luck as a reward.

What I really didn't like was the mystery. We didn't even know there was a mystery at the start, and then when it came about the red herrings were removed quickly and easily. Because the villain was a surprise, we got no time with them and didn't really understand their motivations.

This meant that there was no plot for the first 3rd of the book. Literally none. I had to put this book down and read another one in between because I was getting so frustrated with this. This was almost a dnf because the first third is so boring.

[Mrs Ruth]

Hollywood and magic

This is the second book by this author I have read. I didn't enjoy this one as much as the vine witch however still an interesting well written story. Set predominately in 1950s Hollywood the author beautifully describes life around a film studio and those who work behind the scenes.

[Flora]

*2.5 stars

[Cassie]

I really liked this concept. It was different than anything I’ve read before!

[Amanda Berggren]

3.5 for me. A cute book with some exciting conflict and likable characters

[Katarina Ljubisic]

Boring

[Emelie Flink Patscot]

I was expecting Great Gatsby but with magic, but got something so very flat instead…

[j]

concept wise it’s fun but that’s about it

[Julia Moran]

Solid beach read - love me some magic! But hard to follow and I auto-piloted. Justice for the romance arc.