Imperfect Illusions

This is basically gay X-Men and/or witches? (more on that) in WWI. There are “skilled” people in society that have a variety of mental and physical powers, usually inherited through bloodlines. The rest of the “unskilled” society isn't aware or at least doesn't acknowledge their existence and the skilled people keep whatever powers they have hidden for fear of prejudice and condemnation. But WWI has started and the US is about to enter and they are, of course, aware of the skilled and want them as soldiers.
This is a decent and interesting premise but not exactly unique. Because of that, I think Lawless just expects the readers to go with it and spends little to no time hashing out the different powers, how they work or don't, and the variety that's out there. They just say it's “magic” or thought to be magic (rather than a mental and/or mutant ability). All the skilled characters here just have a random assortment of skills that aren't even necessarily related - ie. Everett Stone can dreamwalk but also enact fear or euphoria with a simple touch and Warren “Sully” Sullivan is an extreme empath that can sense people from a distance based on their emotions but also cast “illusions” to hide or alter reality around him.

Besides the magic lore, the main issue I had with this book is telling the characters apart in the narrative. Their voices weren't different enough for it to be obvious and I spend the first half of the book confused on which person had which powers. I also think it spends a little too much time in their heads and not enough time on what's going on outside it (literally, as we spend a good portion in Warren's dreams with Everett). The WWI setting isn't really described enough - this could almost take place anywhere, just replace German with [blank] and it's the same story.
Note that these are some of the most descriptive sex scenes I've read in a while, so keep that in mind if that's not your thing. Lawless tells us everything they're doing to each other and takes up several pages. The first scene is also a mere 33 pages into the book, since it's what they think will be a one night stand. While I personally have no problem with that and in fact enjoyed it, some of that narrative writing could have been used on character development or more scene description to make this a more cohesive story.

Overall it was a decent first book but left a lot of questions. I'm unsure if I'll continue with the series.