Erin Bow's Reviews > Sorcerer to the Crown

This is an elaborate, stylish book that demands your whole attention, and does not mix well with heavy-duty painkillers. Those painkillers probably account for my struggle to get through the first few chapters, because once I was through them I was absolutely swallowed by this world.

And what a world. This is more or less a regency drama of manners: that is, it's about people whose happy passions are thwarted by society's expectations of them. The twist here is that both these people are magical. One is a woman in a world where cooks might charm a souffle to rise but a proper lady learns to suppress her magic abilities. The other is the leader of Britain's magicians, the Sorcerer Royal, and also a black man, a freed slave no less -- which does not sit at all well with the thaumaturges he supposedly leads.

For a layer of politics, there's the low-grade continual power struggle between Britain's magicians and its government, the "don't interfer in the war" treaty between the British magicians and the French sorcerers, matter of the prickly official relationship with the lands of faerie -- what will Britain do for a magical source with the faerie border closed? -- not to mention the problems with the far flung Pacific kingdom that Britain would like to have as client/outpost. Their sultan wants help putting down the vampiresses. Their female magicians want help putting down the sultan.

Zacharias Wythe, Sorcerer Royal, would have plenty to do just balancing all the political problems. But he also has to handle assassination attempts, racial snubs, a mysterious magical affliction, and the ghost of his predecessor. Not to mention Prunella, profoundly magical and not content with souffles, looking to make a good marriage to win herself some practical freedom, who just so happens to be by far the most powerful magician of the age.

If you like a perfectly inflated, overly elaborate, flawlessly executed souffle of a book -- dig in.