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Feb. 27th, 2021 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsC.M. Waggoner's Unnatural Magic was one of the most fun books I read last year, so I was extremely excited that The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry is one of the first non-Moby-Dick books I got to read this year.
The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry is a sequel of sorts to Unnatural Magic, in that one of the characters is a next-generation scion of two of Unnatural Magic's principals, but stands extremely strongly on its own and is also quite structurally distinct -- Unnatural Magic sort of functioned as two very differently enjoyable books woven together, and The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry is very much one book all throughout, with a strong focus on one protagonist's arc.
That protagonist is Dellaria Wells, a stressed-out petty crook whose powerful fire magic has so far been no help at all in boosting her and her drip-addicted mother out of poverty -- at least, until she manages to pick up a job working with an all-female team of bodyguards to protect an affianced heiress up through her wedding day. The high wages on this relatively easy gig are one benefit of the position; her various high-class colleagues are another, especially Winn Cynallum, a jovially well-bred part-troll lesbian jock who seems to have wandered right out of a Jeeves and Wooster story with a 'FREE MATRIMONIAL REAL ESTATE' sign on her back.
When Winn responds to some early on-the-job flirtation with promising indications of being willing to put a ring on it, Della figures she just may have finally hit the jackpot!
When the bodyguard gig ends abruptly with one of the team dead and the rest of the crew bound on a quest for vengeance that plunges them into a lot of ill-advised subterfuge in the magical drug trade, the road to jackpot suddenly starts to look a lot more perilous! not to mention potentially fraught with Feelings, of both the friendship and the romantical variety!
Unnatural Magic reminded me very much in parts of the best of the YA fantasies of the late nineties and early 2000s, such as Caroline Stevermer's College of Magics, with a more grown-up flavor to it. This one has a bit of that vibe, but also reminded me somewhat unexpectedly of Terry Pratchett -- somewhere between the Pratchett of early Soul Music, when Susan is hanging out for a sadly short period with her set of unusual friends at the school for young ladies, and the Pratchett of Unseen Academicals, when Glenda is struggling to get herself and Juliet out of the crab bucket. These are several flavors that go EXTREMELY well together, but I don't want to spend all my time talking about other books that this one reminds me of; Della is a fantastic character with an extremely strong and compelling voice of her own that carries this book all the way to the finish line. It will not be news to anyone that I'm extremely weak for a short-sighted bisexual con artist with a heart of tarnished silver!
Winn is also very fun and dreamy, and all the side characters are also great -- I'm a particular fan of the bitchy mean girl academic struggling to come to terms with the fact that a very good friend has made Very Bad Choices, but also one has sort of got to mention the unexpectedly helpful possessed undead mouse.
The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry is a sequel of sorts to Unnatural Magic, in that one of the characters is a next-generation scion of two of Unnatural Magic's principals, but stands extremely strongly on its own and is also quite structurally distinct -- Unnatural Magic sort of functioned as two very differently enjoyable books woven together, and The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry is very much one book all throughout, with a strong focus on one protagonist's arc.
That protagonist is Dellaria Wells, a stressed-out petty crook whose powerful fire magic has so far been no help at all in boosting her and her drip-addicted mother out of poverty -- at least, until she manages to pick up a job working with an all-female team of bodyguards to protect an affianced heiress up through her wedding day. The high wages on this relatively easy gig are one benefit of the position; her various high-class colleagues are another, especially Winn Cynallum, a jovially well-bred part-troll lesbian jock who seems to have wandered right out of a Jeeves and Wooster story with a 'FREE MATRIMONIAL REAL ESTATE' sign on her back.
When Winn responds to some early on-the-job flirtation with promising indications of being willing to put a ring on it, Della figures she just may have finally hit the jackpot!
When the bodyguard gig ends abruptly with one of the team dead and the rest of the crew bound on a quest for vengeance that plunges them into a lot of ill-advised subterfuge in the magical drug trade, the road to jackpot suddenly starts to look a lot more perilous! not to mention potentially fraught with Feelings, of both the friendship and the romantical variety!
Unnatural Magic reminded me very much in parts of the best of the YA fantasies of the late nineties and early 2000s, such as Caroline Stevermer's College of Magics, with a more grown-up flavor to it. This one has a bit of that vibe, but also reminded me somewhat unexpectedly of Terry Pratchett -- somewhere between the Pratchett of early Soul Music, when Susan is hanging out for a sadly short period with her set of unusual friends at the school for young ladies, and the Pratchett of Unseen Academicals, when Glenda is struggling to get herself and Juliet out of the crab bucket. These are several flavors that go EXTREMELY well together, but I don't want to spend all my time talking about other books that this one reminds me of; Della is a fantastic character with an extremely strong and compelling voice of her own that carries this book all the way to the finish line. It will not be news to anyone that I'm extremely weak for a short-sighted bisexual con artist with a heart of tarnished silver!
Winn is also very fun and dreamy, and all the side characters are also great -- I'm a particular fan of the bitchy mean girl academic struggling to come to terms with the fact that a very good friend has made Very Bad Choices, but also one has sort of got to mention the unexpectedly helpful possessed undead mouse.
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Date: 2021-02-28 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-02 01:42 am (UTC)