Story Snippets: The King's Spell (Realm and Wand, book 1) (Lizzie)

 At the end of my first novel, The Rose and the Wand, I hinted at a story about a certain character, a handsome young lord whose heart needed refining lest he end up a full-fledged villain. That story turned out to be much harder to write than I anticipated, largely because I had (and still have) a lot of learning left to do about writing. However, I am excited to announce that Devryn's story, or at least book 1 of 3, will be releasing in April! The following two will release, likely one a year, beginning the next year. I plan on sharing the cover next month, but for now, here's the blurb and part of the prologue, set some years before the main story. The King's Spell is a "Jane Austen romance meets fantasy adventure" tale about a half-magic in search of a redemption, a mischievous enchantress searching for purpose and matchmaking opportunities, and a kingdom in danger.

THE KING’S SPELL, Realm and Wand, book 1

Only a king can banish sorcerers and strip enchanters of their power. Only a king is immune to spells and potions. Only a king knows the truth behind the legends. Until now.

Magic Collector Devryn Ashby may have deserved the curse that saps his magic-manipulating abilities, but it certainly won’t help him with the task King Reginald has assigned him. Instead of allowing him to continue hunting for those who stole the powerful Enchanter’s List, the king makes Devryn trainer-in-magic to the mischievous enchantress Lady Meredith Lofton.

Except for an occasional matchmaking exploit, Lady Meredith has little use for her power of enchantment—until the king asks her to train in magical warfare techniques. This both excites and terrifies her. And irks her, for she refuses to be bossed around by the critical Devryn Ashby, a man she’s not even sure she should trust. 

But as dangers increase and the sorcerers’ schemes unfold, Devryn and Meredith must choose whom to follow—their own desires and prejudices or their king. Only a king knows how much the kingdom depends on their choice.

Look for the cover next month!

Prologue

Most say there are but two sorts of people in this world—those possessing magical powers and those not. Of those possessing magical powers, there are enchanters, who use only the magic within themselves, and sorcerers, who call on the dark powers to increase their magic. But what most don’t know, or won’t admit, is that there is a third kind. Lost in legends of a dark time, they’re cursed to live half in the world of enchanters and sorcerers and half in the world of non-magics, trusting and being trusted by none.

A History of Magic in Sonser by Alec Hanshaw, seventh king of Sonser

Devryn Ashby, Marquis of Arden, son of the Duke of Maram

Gersemere, in the Kingdom of Sonser, 1764

If not a body, then what? That was the usual fare for a graveyard. I pressed deeper into the prickly cedar separating me from the enchanter with the spade, and knelt to peer under dark green limbs. The man was attacking the earth with the garden implement but not at one of the innumerable graves in Gersemere’s oldest and largest graveyard. Did the cluster of cedars mark some ancient burial mound filled with treasures? No, the trees weren’t that old.

Straining to see with only a sliver of moon and the man’s lantern, I watched in silence as the enchanter dug a roughly circular hole about a foot deep. From his gunny sack, he pulled a carved wooden bowl filled with wooden fruit and lowered it into the hole.

Fruit, I mouthed, disgusted. All this trouble to bury fruit? It could’ve at least been a worthless treasure map! What would my brother and friends say?

I started to rise, but the enchanter suddenly looked about him. I stilled and listened with thumping heart for him to approach. The silence brought no footsteps but something else: a second sense of magic. Closing my eyes, I focused my senses on the magic, just as my father had taught me. There was the enchanter beyond the cedar, loud as a foghorn, and a different sense, one of magic itself, the kind bestowed on an object or made into a spell. It was lower down, in the ground, I fancied, and was growing dimmer. 

I opened my eyes as the enchanter patted the dirt and grass back into place. He peered around the graveyard—always above my level—then hurried away. I dashed around the tree, came toe-to-dirt with the macerated earth sloppily put back together, but couldn’t bring myself to dig up the bowl. I had to get to the trial, after all. I quickly carved a primitive image of a pear into the base of the forked cedar that had overseen the unorthodox burial, then quietly sprinted after the enchanter. 

He lengthened his stride, the sense of his presence lessening with each of his long steps toward the graveyard’s exit. I ducked behind an obelisk-like marker as he once more twisted his lean frame to look about him. It wasn’t the possibility of a fifteen-year-old boy following him on a dare that kept the enchanter on the alert. Not that he’d shown signs of suspecting my presence. Stealth was practically a game in my family, one in which we all excelled. What did this enchanter fear then? There was no evidence of his mission on him any longer. What else? 

Or who else?

I fisted my hands as a shiver tried to run down my spine. Sorcerers sometimes desecrated graveyards, the fearmongers claimed. An enchanter might fear sorcerers, but an Ashby didn’t. Not that I felt any around.

The enchanter ceased his nervous glancing and sped forward. I crept to the next covering of shadows, the grass silent under my feet. 

“Grave robber! Thief! Murderer!”

The enchanter dashed away as the cry broke the silence of the night and heavy blows rained on my back. I spun around, raising my arms to block the blows and confront my attacker. But the graveyard was empty save for its monuments and the thick cedars and dogwoods dispersed among them. 

“Grave robber! Thief! Murderer!” A girl—a girl—cried. 

A strike to my exposed side sent me reeling onto the gravel path. Son of a rogue spell. Where was she? It wasn’t that dark. A sense, more like a dull headache than the clear sense of an enchanter, edged into my mind, and was then nearly knocked out along with everything else. “Oomph. That was my ear! Why you little—”

“Grave robber! Thief! Murd—”

“Enough! I’m not a murderer.” I lunged forward and grabbed at the air, somehow knowing where to find her weapon. My hand closed around wooden strips bound with fabric. It tingled in my hand. 

Magic. 

No wonder I couldn’t see it, or her. The angry sprite had to be an enchantress. Why wasn’t the sense as clear as the enchanter’s I’d followed?

“Adensum. Come to me,” I whispered, commanding the magic to leave its object and reveal my attacker. I’d never taken magic like this by myself before—in the wild, so to speak. 

But no warmth of enchantment flowed to my palm. Horror blasted my pride. Had I lost my skill? Or was it dependent on my father’s presence? You know you can take magic on your own, Devryn. Relax and think. Locking the panicked thoughts away, I took a deep breath and tried again. Still no magic came from the fabric to me, but I felt a tug, as if some wanted to come but was held back. Once again my pulse quickened, but with wonder this time. Magic was woven into this thing’s very being; it was no ordinary item covered by a cast spell I could take. Yet, there was a faint sense of a spell, of magic that could be taken. I grabbed at that thread of magic and called it.

My palm warmed as the enchantment passed to me. I tightened my grip on whatever it was and tugged. Out of the shadows stumbled a girl. She gasped, sucking in air like a backwards scream. She gaped at me across the now-visible club, a narrow tube capped with a closed canopy of dusty grey fabric stretched across thin ribs.

“An umbrella?” Disdain dripped from my voice like the rain and sunlight that were supposed to drip from these odd contraptions—in the eastern countries. They were scarce in Sonser. Sensible people preferred a cloak or hat so they’d have both hands free. 

For defending themselves.

She nodded, her mouth agape. “How did—”

“Never mind,” I snapped, remembering Father’s admonition of Never reveal what you are. Our people have suffered too much to trust any save the king with our talents.

“What are you doing out here?” I continued. “Wandering around a graveyard at night by yourself and ambushing folks with umbrellas?” I jerked the thing forward, trying to wrest it from her grasp. “You’re just a girl.” Eleven at most. Surely she wasn’t the reason for the enchanter’s wary behavior, though I could understand why he wouldn’t want to meet with that umbrella of hers.

She stumbled forward a step but didn’t lose her grip. “I … I…” she straightened, drawing her shoulders up, “I am here on a personal and confidential matter that is none of your concern, young man. Now, if you’ll excuse me?” She jerked right back on the umbrella with surprising strength.

But it was a useless effort. “You’re not running away from home, are you?”

“Certainly not.” Her nose went higher in the air, but she ceased her tugging.

Tree frogs erupted in song, and she glanced around the lonely place, her shoulders sinking until she gazed at the ground. “If you must know, I was…” she threw a sideways glance at an elegantly carved monument a few feet away with young grass growing in front of it, “…visiting my mother.”

She sniffled.

“Oh.” Devryn Ashby, you fool. Did you want to make the girl cry? “Well, look. Don’t cry. I wasn’t going to steal anything from your mother’s grave, or from anyone else’s. I’m not a grave robber. No shovel or weapon. See?” I raised one hand, palm open.

Whatever that enchanter had buried, he’d buried under a tree, not in a grave, so even if I did come back for it—it’d be an amazing start to my very own magic collection—I wouldn’t technically be robbing a grave.

“What about the man you were following—the one who passed by a moment ago?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t hurt anyone.” She’d realized I was following him? The thought put an unmanly break in my voice. I cleared my throat and held up my palm again. “No weapon. No tools. Remember? I just like walking at night.” That was true, but certainly not the whole truth.

She sniffled again and slowly looked up, her face a dim outline in the bleak light from the one lamppost keeping watch over this section of the graveyard. She had a curious little face, not particularly pretty, more the kind “that grew on one,” as my mother would say.

“I like walking at night too.” She sniffled again, and I used my free hand to give her my handkerchief, which she gladly accepted. “I’m sorry I hit you. You scared me, that’s all.”

I scared her? Yet she pounced on me to protect the enchanter instead of staying hidden. Why? There was a tremble to her voice suggesting a bravado that could be hiding real fear. Why had she hurled those particular accusations against me? Had she reason to fear for the enchanter and herself? Or was I imagining things? Letting the darkness and the peculiar location unnerve me?

“Grave robbers, thieves, murderers, indeed.” I accented each word with a poke of the umbrella still connecting us. She huffed and tensed against the pokes.

“You’re lucky I wasn’t one,” I continued, pleased she’d conquered her sniffles. “Now, which path will lead me to the palace, umbrella-toter? I have an appointment there.” I was late already, having detoured to follow the enchanter.

She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before pursing her lips and pointing in the direction from which I’d come. I shook my head. She looked around again, changed hands on the umbrella, and pointed to my left.

“I’m going to the palace too,” she said, “to … to the trial.”

“No, you’re not. Farris was a professor at the boys’ school. We all agreed no girls allowed.”

“Johnny said sisters could tag along if we promised not to start crying.”

“He did, did he? Who is this Johnny?” Uncle Angus, an advisor to the king, was the one to set up the secret room for the boys to watch the trial of one of the most popular professors at our school. We’d had to swear not to tell a soul what we heard. 

“My brother, Jonathan Lofton.”

“Oh.” I knew him from school. Enchanter, proud and quiet.

“I’m Meredith Lofton.”

“Devryn Ashby.” We shook hands over the umbrella. 

“Johnny said he and my cousins Charlie and Tristan would pass this way, and I could follow them. I haven’t seen them. I should have told him I was coming early and would meet him here.”

“Maybe he meant to lose you.”

She stiffened. “He’d do no such thing.”

I shrugged. “Anyway, my group’s gone ahead too. You should go home.” Or follow me. I’d never live it down if I invited the kid. Especially if she hit someone.

Mouth set in a firm line, she eyed me over the umbrella in a calculating way. I stared back, but my attention wandered to the umbrella. Its sturdy fabric, reminiscent of an old travel cloak, felt sadly cool against my palm, as if mourning its magic. I must have taken some sort of magical switch that allowed the enchantress to decide whether the object was invisible or not. She might have need of its power of invisibility, especially if she didn’t follow me to the palace and went home on her own.

With a sigh, I banished dreams of proudly depositing the magic in my family’s magic collection and focused on the odd version of the legendary invisibility cloak. “Recursus. Return from whence you came.” The umbrella slowly disappeared, its texture and a sense of magic all that remained.

“Good night.” I released the umbrella as I turned away. Such a pity to lose it. Collecting was the only way for us to gain magic. Once we had it though, we could manipulate it better even than the enchanters could.

Something clicked. I spun around, bracing for another blow, but none came. She was invisible again.

If I remembered rightly, umbrella roughly meant “little shadow.” How very apt. She had vanished like a shadow when a lantern bursts to life.

For the first time on that muggy, cloudy night, I smiled. I could sense enchantments and collect and return them at will—I’d have a place among my people. A place of honor. And the boys at school couldn’t say I’d gotten it because of my birth order. I’d earn respect as a half-magic, a future duke, and in any position I chose.

With light steps on the grass beside the path, I started toward the secret—well, little known—entrance of the palace. Footsteps followed, crunching on the gravel walkway.

The Little Shadow. That umbrella might hide her from sight, but it did nothing in the sound area. She was making enough noise to raise the … dead. A sudden breeze chilled my skin, and I glanced around at the towering monuments and the burial plots over which they cast their shadows. I picked up my pace, as did the enchantress behind me in her noisy fashion. My chest swelled. I was a knight escorting a damsel—on the sly.

Wrought of Silver and Ravens: A Twelve Dancing Princesses Retelling Story Snippet (Lizzie)

Ever since reading an illustrated children's book of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," I have loved the story. I've read a few retellings (my favorite being The Firethorn Crown by Lea Doue), but I must admit a preference for that beautiful children's book, which unlike most retellings, focuses on the soldier with the invisibility cloak who frees the princesses rather than on the princesses themselves. This winter I had an unexpected idea for a retelling of the story set in my Magic Collectors world. Only this tale is set in the ancient past, in the incomparable land of walled cities of white stone perched on cliffs above deep blue seas, where sandals rather slippers are worn, where soldiers and not just princesses are respected. Into this beautiful, dangerous land comes a hunted young wanderer, a man of secrets, who gets more than he bargains for when rescues a prince, not the least of which is the responsibility of guarding the prince's seven cursed sisters.


Wrought of Silver and Ravens releases August 25, 2020. This is the rough draft of part of chapter 1 and chapter 2. I hope you enjoy it!

Wrought of Silver and Ravens

Chapter 1a

It wasn’t quite cold enough to kill a man. Nor was it wet enough. Athdar Owain Leonidas swiped his hand on his shirt, in the little area his cloak had kept reasonably dry, then touched two fingers to the unconscious man’s throat. Or boy’s, depending on how they gauged maturity in this land. Though wearing a soldier’s garb, and some marks of status, his face gave the appearance of one just short of manhood, about seventeen or so. Boy, then. Soldier.

Enchanter.

Athdar’s fingers warmed quickly with magic, yet rose only slightly with a pulse. He straightened as much as the cave would let him and backed away from the enchanter, savoring the warmth of magic in his hands despite a twinge of guilt.

Water dripped from his hair onto his forehead, and he pushed his hair aside, shivering, and considered the unconscious boy again.

Cold and wet. Together they might be enough. Especially with his wounds.

The question was, did Athdar care enough to do something about it? It would keep him in these ruthless borderlands longer than he wanted, and he still had his llewod gwerthfawr to care for.

But he soon found his feet carrying him out of the cave into the misting rain and along the cliff side in search of limbs for a fire. He guessed he did care, or at least knew he should. Despite the fact that the boy was an enchanter, and no good ever came from them, not for Athdar’s kind.

A half hour later, just before the sun would disappear over the mountain peaks, Athdar squatted beside a pile of wet limbs in the cave. There were few specimens Athdar would classify as trees in this land of rocks and scraggly shrubs, but he picked up a glorified twig from the pile and braced it upright between his knees.

“You’re going to have to warm us both, you know.”

The enchanter-soldier-boy had started moaning, so Athdar didn’t feel as bad talking to him. And he spoke in the common tongue. The few traders who’d ventured out from his homeland and returned had striven to teach them all they could before the Leaving. He’d picked up more in the few years since his clan’s departure. “I ran out of magic a ways back. And everything’s wet here.”

He wrapped his left hand around the boy’s and cupped his right around the tip of the twig. When his left hand warmed with magic, drawn from the enchanter, he snapped the fingers of his right. The tip of the twig burst with a orange and yellow flame. There was something else in the warmth of the magic—a spell. Perhaps many. With a hiss, Athdar dropped the enchanter’s hand.

Could an unconscious enchanter bespell him? Or was the enchanter himself bespelled? How did spells work on one of Athdar’s kind? Or did it depend on the spell?

But now was not the time for that, whether the enchanter was the bespeller or the bespelled.

Athdar touched his finger to the base of the magical fire, then ran it along the length of the limb, dragging the fire with him. He tossed the blazing limb on the pile and repeated the process until he’d built a respectable fire.

When the enchanter moaned, Athdar twisted around to feel the boy’s face and hands. He could sense magic under the enchanter’s skin but pushed it away instead of calling it. Rather, he focused on his skin’s warmth. The boy had a fever, yet also a chill to his skin. The fire would fix the latter. The herbs Athdar’s mother had shoved into his pack before they were separated might fix the former.

Using a hand on the cave ceiling to gauge how much he could straighten, he picked up a limb to use as a torch and shuffled farther into the low cave. A crevice in the tunnel wall created a nook hidden from the main chamber.

Mewl. Mewl.

A smile twisted Athdar’s lips. Not that the nook would stay hidden for long if anyone used their ears rather than their eyes.

Athdar knelt before two wooden crates. Four sets of golden eyes gleamed up at him. Four pink tongues, rough as only felines’ are, and half as many clawed paws, sought out his fingers. Remembering his patient, Athdar drew his hand back in time to avoid their lick-and-bite greetings. After picking up his pack, he returned to the main chamber.

Working in the dim firelight, he made a poultice from several herbs, then cleaned and rebound the enchanter’s wounds. As he tied off the bandages, his gaze skimmed the unconscious boy. Knife wounds, rope burns, possibly a broken rib. That was only the wounds he could see.

What was he going to do with an injured enchanter? He couldn’t take him into a village and leave him. He didn’t know if he could trust the villagers. They’d likely take care of the boy as one of their own, and a person of status, but Athdar? As a foreigner, they’d tell anyone who asked that they’d seen him.

He touched the boy’s forehead again. Warm with fever. He could feel the warmth of magic ready to answer his summons, but he had no justification for taking it now. Why hadn’t the boy used magic to defend himself?

Would what magic wounds look like on an enchanter or sorcerer? Would they be visible to the eye?

Athdar stilled, memories threatening to crowd into his mind, then shoved the few remaining bandages into the pack and hurried back to the crevice.

Meeeeowl.

“Was that a question, Cumi? You want to know what’s for dinner?” Athdar used the torch to find the two hares he’d snared earlier and not been able to dress yet. “I think you know. You’ve smelled them all evening. Well, come on then. Dinner is served.” He slid the crates’ gates up and backed away as the four llewod gwerthfawr cubs tumbled out. Luath made a leap for the hares in Athdar’s left hand, which he quickly raised out of the way. Dana and Lytse collided on their wobbly legs and toppled over. Coming out last, Cumi stretched, rubbed his boot, then batted at the hares.

“Come on then.” Nodding toward the main chamber, Athdar shuffled back to it, careful not to step on the paws batting at his feet. Cumi let out a meowl as she entered the chamber, her golden eyes fixed on both the fire and the enchanter beyond it. “Good girl, but they’re not for you.” He snatched her up by the scruff as she tried to dart past him. “No, Cumi.”

Settling on the cold rock floor on the other side of the fire from the enchanter, Athdar released Cumi, then tossed the hares to the cubs. Scooting closer to the fire, he held out his hands to warm them, then picked up another limb and called to the magic he’d used to light it. The fire vanished, and Athdar gripped the charcoaled stick like a large pencil and began to draw on the cave floor. Three ravens, wings spread in flight, took shape, slowly, as he glanced up often check on the cubs. Finished with their dinner, Luath and Lytse wrestled with each other. Cumi and Dana had their heads down and rumps up, eyes on the enchanter.

He tossed the stick back into the fire and leaned forward to grab Cumi and Dana. He sat them in front of him, the ravens between them. “Leave him alone, you two. He doesn’t want to play. And I don’t know how his magic would affect you. It’s time to see how much you remember from your training.”

He whistled three short notes, and the cubs lined up across from him and laid down. He passed his hand quickly over the drawings, charcoal smearing onto his fingers as he lightly touched them.

“All right, Miss Lytse, which of these has the enchantment?”

Lytse, petite and cautious, stepped lightly forward, sniffed the first raven, then the second, and sat behind the second. “Good girl.” He rubbed her head, giving her a touch of magic, just enough to make her fur glimmer. She shook her fur out, sending a sparkle of golden light into the chamber, and pranced back to her place. Athdar passed his hand over the ravens again and called Dana, who mimicked his sister. Luath didn’t bother sniffing. He simply sat on the third raven and wouldn’t get up until Athdar shoved him aside in a playful tumble.

As Cumi pranced up to the ravens, Athdar’s lips curved at the corners. She sniffed the first, the second, and finally the third raven, then looked up at him, head cocked. He shrugged. She sniffed each raven back up to the first, then looked up at him again. He stared bank at her expectantly.

Her rump started to slowly lower behind the first raven, her gaze staying on him. Athdar raised an eyebrow at her. She stilled, then growled at him. Chuckling, Athdar gave her a quick scratch behind the ear, then passed his hand over the drawings again. Cumi sniffed them all, glancing up at him from the second one. When he didn’t respond, she moved to the third, and looked between it, the second, and him. One corner of Athdar’s mouth curled up. With a flick of her tail, Cumi turned lengthwise and flopped down to cover both the second and third ravens. Laughing, Athdar picked her up and put her in his lap. “Very good, Cumi. Looks like I can’t trick you, after all.”

He gave her a good belly rub as her siblings played with one another. With a short whistle, he called them back to attention, then laid his hand on the center raven. Whispering, he pulled his fisted hand up. With a deft twist of his wrist, he opened his hand. An ethereal raven darted into the air, swooping over the cubs’ heads. Cumi’s claws dug into Athdar’s legs as she twisted around and scrambled out of his lap to join the others in chasing the illusion.

He watched until they tired, then cleaned up their crates and dinner, and put them to bed. After digging through another pack for his own dinner, he returned to the main chamber, ate a few crackers and some cheese, gave the boy a drink of water, and settled down against the cave wall, grateful for the fire’s warmth on the damp, cool night.

Night … He could scout out a village to dump the enchanter in at night. Someone would take him in. Athdar need not show himself. But he didn’t want to leave cubs alone with the enchanter again. What if he woke? He could hurt them, or they him. Athdar could stay with the enchanter a couple of days, until he began to wake, then leave him some food and go his way. He’d done enough for the enchanter as it was.

Voices warred in his head. The priest proclaiming that all were their neighbors and should be treated as such, the common distrust and frequent hate among his people for both enchanters and sorcerers. The histories telling of the horrors they suffered in the Caffin Wars because of “good” enchanters and evil sorcerers both. They were the reasons his kind had been sent into hiding at the end of the Caffin Wars. Time was forcing the half-magics back into the world, but there were no great heroes to save them now. Only common men and women who would seek to control them and profit by them.

Even magic, like a gold band, wears thin over time, Athdar, his grandfather had told him as his home disappeared behind him. A city walled with magic cannot stay hidden forever. We must leave, clan by clan, before the walls vanish. Now is the time for us to return to the land of men and magic and vanish among its peoples. But we will be no one’s slave this time. No one’s living wand or disposable weapon. No enchanter will know our power, no sorcerer enslave us.

Chapter 2

Eight years ago, beneath the castle fortress of Doromou, Kingdom of Giliosthay

It wasn’t a dream world. Or a real one. Was it possible to be somewhere in between? Ten-year-old Princess Thea raised her candle above her head. But its light revealed no walls or ceiling in the room that felt entirely too big for the space Thea knew it belonged to—a storage closet in the wine cellar.

The floor, a polished marble, was gritty with dust that slipped into her sandals. It suggested that this was a real place, as did the fact that she didn’t readily fall asleep while standing. “Mother?”

“Yes, dear?” Queen Thalassa stood a few feet away, watching her.

“Where are we? It feels too … big.” And not perfectly square or rectangular, or even one-storied. Though how she knew the space had three stories and an extension on one end like a chancel in a church was beyond her.

“What are your senses telling you, Thea?” She detected a faint smile in her mother’s voice. While that pleased her, she would have preferred an explanation, and a row of candles on the walls.

But her mother was a strict teacher. So Thea stilled her thoughts and focused on what her senses were telling her, especially on that peculiar one that made her shoulders hunch because it told her the walls and floor above were wavering and unsteady. “It’s a three-storied building with a porch on one end. It’s not stable.” She caught her mother’s broad waistband, wide and golden, and tugged gently, not caring if she were too old for clinging to skirts. “We should go.”

Her mother only answered with a laugh and a flash of light from her palm.

Chandeliers hanging around the room and sconces on walls flared to a comfortable brilliance, and the wavering feeling ceased. The place was sturdy now, like a bag filled tightly with water. Thea cocked her head at her enchantress mother.

Draping one arm around Thea’s shoulders, her mother pulled her close and gestured to the anomaly around them, a place built of magic. “Welcome to the Realm of Coryrosu, Thea, Realm Walker of Coryrosu. It’s time to begin your lessons.”

Have you ever read and illustrated version of The Twelve Dancing Princesses? What is your favorite retelling, if you are familiar with the story?

To Catch a Magic Thief by E.J. Kitchens (Laurie)

In case you missed it, our own E.J. Kitchens (affectionately known around Lands Uncharted as Lizzie) released a new book in February! Check out her fun release day post here :)  I had the great honor of reading an early copy of To Catch a Magic Thief and endorsing it, and now I'm excited to share my review with all of you!

Gabriella is the second daughter in the beautiful, prestigious Floraison family. While she possesses the pride that comes along with her family's striking looks and lofty position, she also harbors a dark secret - she has a sinister scar on her finger and dreams that seem to link her to the evil sorcerers. When Marcel, a new student of her father's, keeps crossing her path, Gabriella wants nothing to do with the awkward baron. But their lives become more and more entwined as they uncover evidence that the notorious Magic Thief has plans to strike the Floraison family, not only for their magical treasures, but for Gabriella herself.

Are you intrigued yet?? Because I got chills again just writing that! Like Kitchens' debut novel, The Rose and the Wand, To Catch a Magic Thief has a wonderful blend of magic, humor, adventure, and Jane Austen-esque romance. Just my kind of story! Her writing style is sophisticated but fun to read, and her world-building gets even more fascinating in this book as we learn more about sorcerers and magic collectors. I loved the organic way in which Gabriella and Marcel's relationship developed from annoyance and misunderstandings to working together to friendship (and maybe even beyond...). Their interactions had so many moments of both entertainment and deeper meaning as each character learned more about themselves and the other. I also really enjoyed the mystery behind the Magic Thief and Gabriella's scarred finger, adding a level of suspense that made me eager to keep reading!

If, like me, you're a fan of both fantasy and period romances, you absolutely need to give Kitchens' Magic Collectors series a try. I'm looking forward to future installments!


Have you read any of Lizzie's books yet? Do you have any other historical fantasy romance recommendations for me?


Thanks for reading!
Laurie


P.S. You'll get to hear about what Julie's been reading later this month - we switched to free up her time for some adventures this week :)