England has a bit of a problem. Their magic is fading, and no one seems to know why. Zacharias, the new Sorcerer Royal, is determined to find out why, and hopefully fix the problem. Poor Zacharias. He is young, and grieving for the death of his mentor, and suffering from a mysterious (to us, at least) malady. Oh, and he’s black. So really, there’s not much going for him.
Prunella Gentleman is a young lady in a school for gentlewitches. She’s not a student, though, but a ward of the headmistress. Magic has been forbidden to the fairer sex, deeming them too frail to suffer the heavy weight of magic. Women are taught to suppress their magic, if they have any. Lower class women may practice their small magics, but not gentlewomen. Prunella seems to have a great deal of magic, and really sees no problems in using it. She also suffers from the affliction of unknown parentage, her father being a known entity, but not her mother, who was most likely from India.
I do appreciate that the author has characters of color in leading roles, and does not shy away from the difficulties they face. The prejudice against women and people of other races was rampant in the 1800’s. (And at the moment I’m listening to Stephen Fry’s podcast, “The Victorian Secret” which touches upon this very issue!)
Prunella is both practical and foolish. She is quick to action, but doesn’t necessarily think her actions through enough. For example, one would have been quite enough, but she risks three, a mistake which could have been deadly.
Unlike Ale, I don’t really have a problem with the dialogue. Some of the sentences in both the prose and the dialogue tend to ramble a bit, though. It does use more formal language, but it fits with the time period that the author is trying to portray.
I’m not as pleased with the last 70 pages or so of the book. Some of it is good, but about half of each chapter was not to my taste. It also feels like a lot of the reactions are subdued. It feels like in the situation, reactions would be much stronger. And there’s some really nice stuff in the last chapter that could have been expanded on, because it was lovely.
So, it was a solid 4 stars until the end, and then it gets bumped down to a 3.
Bonus thoughts:
For some reason, the voice I have assigned Mrs. Wythe is the voice used for Miss Bates in the Audible production of Emma. If you’ve listened to it, then you know what I’m talking about.
You can tell practically from the beginning that England’s magic problems stem from something dumb that a man did. Oh, man, it’s that guy! He did a bad.
Bonus bonus:
I picked up my copy at the New York Comic Con, and it has a signed bookplate!
