Rust in the Root
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The author of the visionary New York Times bestseller Dread Nation returns with another spellbinding historical fantasy set at the crossroads of race and power in America.
It is 1937, and Laura Ann Langston lives in an America divided—between those who work the mystical arts and those who do not. Ever since the Great Rust, a catastrophic event that blighted the arcane force called the Dynamism and threw America into disarray, the country has been rebuilding for a better future. And everyone knows the future is industry and technology—otherwise known as Mechomancy—not the traditional mystical arts.
Laura disagrees. A talented young queer mage from Pennsylvania, Laura hopped a portal to New York City on her seventeenth birthday with hopes of earning her mage’s license and becoming something more than a rootworker.
But four months later, she’s got little to show for it other than an empty pocket and broken dreams. With nowhere else to turn, Laura applies for a job with the Bureau of the Arcane’s Conservation Corps, a branch of the US government dedicated to repairing the Dynamism so that Mechomancy can thrive. There she meets the Skylark, a powerful mage with a mysterious past, who reluctantly takes Laura on as an apprentice.
As they’re sent off on their first mission together into the heart of the country’s oldest and most mysterious Blight, they discover the work of mages not encountered since the darkest period in America’s past, when Black mages were killed for their power—work that could threaten Laura’s and the Skylark’s lives, and everything they’ve worked for.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ireland (Dread Nation) delivers a knockout punch in this fantastical steampunk take on the Great Depression, in which the U.S. rebuilds after a magical blight throws the country into disarray. In 1937, Black 17-year-old Laura Ann Langston, a powerful queer mage hailing from small-town Shrinesville, Pa., goes to New York City seeking a grand future beyond her family's humble farm. Unable to procure a job and low on funds, she seeks help from the Colored Auxiliary branch of the Bureau of the Arcane's Conservation Corps—a group of Black mages responsible for maintaining the magical machines that power the U.S. economy. Mages sent to research and manage the blight that still threatens the country's machinery are disappearing, and the Skylark, the enigmatic head of the Floramancy Division, grudgingly takes Laura on as her apprentice. But Laura and the Skylark fear for their lives and the country's future when their investigation unveils dangerous archaic magic thought long gone. Ireland mingles an in-depth understanding of human nature with a wildly ambitious reimagining of the Depression era, balancing matters of race, gender, and sexuality in this thoroughly unique perspective of historical magical fantasy. B&W photographs depicting real-life U.S. history, featured throughout, enrich the narrative. Ages 14–up.
