A world of enchanted injustice needs a disenchanting woman in an all-new fantasy series by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Paper Magician.
The orphaned Elsie Camden learned as a girl that there were two kinds of wizards in the world: those who pay for the power to cast spells and those, like her, born with the ability to break them. But as an unlicensed magic user, her gift is a crime. Commissioned by an underground group known as the Cowls, Elsie uses her spellbreaking to push back against the aristocrats and help the common man. She always did love the tale of Robin Hood.
Elite magic user Bacchus Kelsey is one elusive spell away from his mastership when he catches Elsie breaking an enchantment. To protect her secret, Elsie strikes a bargain. She’ll help Bacchus fix unruly spells around his estate if he doesn’t turn her in. Working together, Elsie’s trust in—and fondness for—the handsome stranger grows. So does her trepidation about the rise in the murders of wizards and the theft of the spellbooks their bodies leave behind.
For a rogue spellbreaker like Elsie, there’s so much to learn about her powers, her family, the intriguing Bacchus, and the untold dangers shadowing every step of a journey she’s destined to complete. But will she uncover the mystery before it’s too late to save everything she loves?
I am a huge fan of the Paper Magician series as it shows the uniqueness of an author who can develop magical systems like this. In this series, we have Spellbreakers who can see a spell and take the knots of it and untangle it to where it no longer works. Their also Spellmakers which take center stage for the second half of this duology.
Our main character is drawn into a world of magical intrigue by a group she has dubbed "the cowls". She balances her duties at a stone masonry and as a rouge Spellbreaker for this group. She becomes entangled with an intriguing gentleman named Bacchus who is also caught up in what turns to be a whole coup.
The balance of what we know and what we learn is so seamless that I was caught up in the same issues as our main character. I was cheering for all the good she believes she is doing and hurt for how things come to light in the end. I dying for the sequel Spellmaker due out in March of 2021.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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30 October, 2020:
Finished reading
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30 October, 2020:
Reviewed