Sorcerer to the Crown
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4.3 • 11 Ratings
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho is a delightfully fun and compelling Regency romp filled with love, danger and a pinch of fairyland magic.
'An enchanting cross between Georgette Heyer and Susanna Clarke' – Naomi Novik, author of Uprooted
In Regency London, Zacharias Wythe is England's first African Sorcerer Royal. He leads the eminent Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, but a malicious faction seeks to remove him by fair means or foul. Meanwhile, the Society is failing its vital duty – to keep stable the levels of magic within His Majesty's lands. The Fairy Court is blocking its supply, straining England's dangerously declining magical stores.
Ambitious orphan Prunella Gentleman is desperate to escape the school where she's drudged all her life, and a visit by the beleaguered Sorcerer Royal seems the perfect opportunity. For Prunella has just stumbled upon English magic's greatest discovery in centuries - and she intends to make the most of it. Together, Zacharias and Prunella might just change the nature of sorcery, in Britain and beyond.
'Inventive, dangerous, brilliant, unsettling' – Courtney Milan, author of The Duchess War
Winner of the 2016 British Fantasy Society Award for Best Newcomer
Shortlisted for the 2016 British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novel
Shortlisted for the 2016 Locus First Novel Award
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in the excruciatingly class-conscious realm of an alternate 19th-century England, Cho's delightful debut novel skillfully blends fantasy and intrigue with issues of race and gender politics. Zacharias Wythe, the child of enslaved Africans, has spent almost all of his 24 years apprenticing under his English adoptive father, Sir Stephen Wythe, Sorcerer Royal and member of the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers. When Sir Stephen dies and Zacharias is reluctantly thrust into power, the Society is outraged at the thought of a black man governing its ilk and chooses to blame Britain's dwindling magical resources actually a longtime crisis on the color of Zacharias's skin. At Mrs. Daubeney's School for Gentlewitches, where girls are trained to suppress their magical abilities because they supposedly lack the intelligence to be sorcerers, 19-year-old Prunella Gentlewoman stumbles across a long-forgotten legacy that could be the key to saving Zacharias's life and restoring Britain's magic. Cho's tale knits together a dizzying array of taut story lines populated by complex characters with interesting backstories. Zacharias brings to mind another orphaned young wizard whose combination of grit and melancholy captured readers' hearts, and ingenious, gutsy Prunella simply shines.
