hmm

Well, that was... something.
It felt very much like a self-indulgent, Mary Sue fanfic. The protagonist was so, so obviously based on the author himself. This was made even clearer with the afterward where it is revealed that he is a cardiac surgeon and magician. Just like the protagonist. Guh. I'll give a bit of a pass, though, as it was his first book.
He also used the book as a way to express his strong feelings on certain subjects, particularly Catholicism and corruption within the church. He also has a very obvious hate on for Pope John Paul 2 who he feels was ultraconservative, had some kind of saviour complex and handed out sainthood too freely. But he was totally down with Pope Francis.
So, the thing is, I'm a practicing Catholic and a hardcore lefty. I should have been the target audience, more or less. Except I found it kind of awful. It was so biased and unsubtle, and loaded with straw men. I couldn't quite figure if it was straight up anti-Catholic, anti-organized religion, or just anti-hard right?
Ok, but the story. It was kind of fun, apart from the above, and the really uncomfortable romance subplot. Part of what made said subplot uncomfortable were explained somewhat once I learned the age of the author. At 70, some weirdness (for lack of a better word) about interracial relationships is not so surprising. But it was still uncomfortable and maybe a little problematic.
The story did keep me engaged because I wanted to know if the "magic" was real or..? The ending wasn't totally satisfying.
Yeah, turns out I was not the target audience after all.

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