DFZ (Detroit Free Zone) is the new series by Rachel Aaron, taking place in Detroit, 20 years after the events in Heartstrikers. I thought it was fun, exciting and quick. The audio book was great as well, similar in vibe to Hearstrikers, but a different narrator. 

The story follows Opal,  a young Korean Mage, moved to the DFZ to get away from her controlling family. She works as a cleaner, but more in a Storage Wars kind of way, bidding for apartments and selling the stuff that’s in them, plus cleaning, after people get evicted. I’m not a huge fan of that show, but if you’re even vaguely into you should give it a try, it doesn’t really come up a lot on fantasy. It also scratches the “mundane job in a fantasy world” itch.

Characters 

The cast of characters is pretty small, there’s Nick, another cleaner who has a lot of bad history, he’s mostly the silent type but grows on you, Opal’s mental health AI assistant, that keeps trying to save Opal from herself and is generally cheerful, and the lovely parents, super controlling dad and arguably insane/brainwashed mom. 

Story 

The main plot is Opal trying to pay back a debt, and getting hit with more and more obstacles along the way. She’s a rich girl desperate for her independence, ending up broke and hitting rock bottom, repeatedly. The action is mostly centered around out-maneuvering her dad and trying to hustle up money, but there are a few action sequences, especially the finale of book 2 is very dramatic, in a more typical fantasy novel sort of way. 

Minimum Wage Magic is about her finding an apartment which hides a magical mystery and following various clues to unravel it, pissing off a few powerful people in the process. 

It’s a pretty small scale story, dealing with independence, money trouble and just-no-families. There’s also some romance, of the ‘aww her poor self worth is making her blind to love interest” variety, which I’m personally a fan of. The overall tone is pretty hopeful, even though there are plenty of lows, Opal tries to work through her problems while doing the right thing and not hurting people, kinda similar to Julius in Heartstrikers. 

Part Time Gods sees her even more focused in on her money problems. I was a bit annoyed at how she missed very obvious hints that led to trouble, but thinking back it worked with her mind frame. 

Although it takes place after Heartstrikers, the series can be read independently. There are a few cameos here and there, which can be considered vagueish spoilers for how Heartstrikers ends (I’m not caught  up with it myself). 

Bingo squares: AI character, small scale, self published, audiobook, local to Atlanta and Athens, GA, Part Time Gods: published in 2019,