For those who missed it, An Inheritance of Magic released yesterday in the UK and worldwide! Here are a couple of the more high-profile reviews, lightly edited to avoid major spoilers.
Publisher’s Weekly:
A world of magic usually known only to the rich and powerful is put to the test in the page-turning urban fantasy that launches an intriguing new series from Jacka (the Alex Verus series). Twenty-year-old Stephen Oakwood ekes out a life in modern-day London by working low-wage jobs and renting a room in his aunt’s house. The only thing that really matters to him is fulfilling the promise he made to his father just before the man disappeared two years ago: namely, to keep practicing his drucraft, or magic. Stephen’s growing skill draws the wrong kind of attention, however . . . when people start trying to murder him, Stephen realizes he’s got much more to learn about the elite world of drucraft, its internal power struggles, and what his family has to do with all of it. Jacka provides immense detail about the ins and outs of drucraft, which will please fans of hard magic systems but occasionally slows down the story. Still, there’s lots of promise to this eat-the-rich world. Readers will be eager to see where things go next.
The Wall Street Journal:
Young men living alone with their cats seem to be trending literarily. Benedict Jacka, the prolific author of the Alex Verus series, joins in with an appealing vision of contemporary fantasy in “An Inheritance of Magic.”
Stephen Oakwood is a young Londoner in a dead-end job; his mother left when he was a baby, and his father has mysteriously vanished. He has little going for him besides a few close friends, his pet cat, Hobbes, and a secret: Behind his closed bedroom door, Stephen practices magic, or “drucraft.” It is vaguely known in the wider world but dismissed by many as a weird hobby, while others hoard its secrets: In fact, the most powerful families, corporations and governments control it.
Stephen comes to understand the full truth about the commodification of drucraft when his distant cousin Lucella visits him as part of her plan to become heir of the Ashford family, a wealthy clan who wield both magic and wealth. The internecine battle she drags Stephen into imperils the life of the one thing in the world he has to care for: his beloved cat . . . Stephen’s tale makes for one of the most satisfying contemporary fantasies I have read in a long time; cozy and human, with some good fight scenes to boot. The succinctly explained treatment of magic even makes sense.
“An Inheritance of Magic” is an enchanting journey into a world where sorcery may be for sale, but agency is beyond price.
And as usual, there are plenty of reviews on the book’s Goodreads page.
For those of you in the US and Canada, the book gets its North American release on October 10th.
