Magic Dark and Strange
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
The Bone Witch meets Sherlock Holmes in this thrilling historical fantasy about a girl with the ability to raise the dead who must delve into her city’s dangerous magical underworld to stop a series of murders.
Catherine Daly has an unusual talent. By day she works for a printer. But by night, she awakens the dead for a few precious moments with loved ones seeking a final goodbye. But this magic comes with a price: for every hour that a ghost is brought back, Catherine loses an hour from her own life.
When Catherine is given the unusual task of collecting a timepiece from an old grave, she is sure that the mysterious item must contain some kind of enchantment. So she enlists Guy Nolan, the watchmaker’s son, to help her dig it up. But instead of a timepiece, they find a surprise: the body of a teenage boy. And as they watch, he comes back to life—not as the pale imitation that Catherine can conjure, but as a living, breathing boy. A boy with no memory of his past.
This magic is more powerful than any Catherine has ever encountered, and revealing it brings dangerous enemies. Catherine and Guy must race to unravel the connection between the missing timepiece and the undead boy. For this mysterious magic could mean the difference between life and death—for all of them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Powell's (Songs from the Deep) atmospheric and leisurely tale follows Catherine Daly, 17, who has spent two years on her own in the city of Invercarn, helping to support her family by working as a typesetter. In recent months, her duties have expanded to include what's known as "the farewell service": using blood magic and sacrificing a small portion of her lifespan to briefly raise the dead for final visits with loved ones. When her boss requests that she retrieve a buried timepiece said to bring the dead fully back to life, Catherine enlists the help of Guy Nolan, whose father owns a watch and clock repair store known for its sideline in time-oriented enchantment. Though the pair fail to discover the magical timepiece in the unmarked grave, they witness its occupant's transformation from withered corpse to fully alive boy. As they work to uncover the mystery behind the former coffin-maker's identity and his earlier fate, Catherine and Guy begin a gentle, decorous courtship, eventually progressing to a first-name basis. Despite its abundance of wonderfully creepy details, including midnight cemetery visits and a body snatcher, the story is strangely sedate, with a detail-heavy narration that quashes the plot's urgency. Ages 12 up.
