A Sleight of Shadows
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
Return to Kat Howard’s Alex Award–winning world begun in An Unkindness of Magicians, a secret society of power-hungry magicians in New York City.
After taking down the source of the corruption of the Unseen World, Sydney is left with almost no magical ability. Feeling estranged from herself, she is determined to find a way back to her status as one of the world’s most dangerous magicians. Unfortunately, she needs to do this quickly: the House of Shadows, the hell on earth that shaped her into who she was, the place she sacrificed everything to destroy, is rebuilding itself.
“The House of Shadows sits on bones. All of the sacrifices, all of the magicians who died in Shadows, they’re buried beneath the foundations. Bones hold magic.”
The magic of the Unseen World is acting strangely, faltering, bleeding out from the edges. Determined to keep the House of Shadows from returning to power and to defeat the magicians who want nothing more than to have it back, Sydney turns to extremes in a desperate attempt to regain her sacrificed magic. She is forced to decide what she will give up and what she will lose and whether what must be destroyed is not only the House of Shadows, but the Unseen World itself.
World Fantasy Award finalist Kat Howard has written a sequel that asks how you have a happily ever in a world that doesn’t want it, where the cost of that happiness may be too much to bear.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Howard's immersive second Unseen World dark fantasy picks up right where An Unkindness of Magicians left off. The Unseen World is reeling from the events of the Turning, a competition which upended the hierarchy of magical houses and, thanks to the machinations of heroine Sydney, resulted in the complete dissolution of the corrupt House of Shadows. Unfortunately, Sydney's destruction of Shadows left her powerless—and earned her some powerful enemies. With the balance of magic thrown out of whack, the other Houses start falling apart. Dahlia, head of House Morgan, sets out to save the Unseen World by rebuilding the House of Shadows—no matter who she has to sacrifice to do so. To stop Dahlia, Sydney must ally with new friends and find a way forward without magic of her own. Howard's worldbuilding is as grim and complex as ever, and it's easy to root for her resilient heroine in the face of impossible odds. This thrilling outing will keep readers guessing in all the right ways.
