Ireland makes advanced concepts accessible, and old photos, articles, and investigative reports bolster her uncanny ability to weave painful, real history into this new world. Readers are thrust into complex worldbuilding with familiar parallels to our world. It’s there that Laura also uncovers a conspiracy and gains insight into the depths of her power. There, they use their capacity to control the Dynamism, an energy field that mages pull from. After other areas’ teams go missing, Laura and Skylark set out on an ominous mission to the Ohio Deep Blight, a zone experiencing unnatural phenomena that have disastrous effects on people and animals. Laura is recruited by the formidable agent Skylark, head of the Colored Auxiliary’s regional Floramancy Division.

Several months in, Laura is flat broke with nowhere to call home, leading her to join the Bureau of the Arcane’s Conservation Corps. However, 1937 America cares little about her sweet ambitions or that she traveled from a country town in Pennsylvania to New York City to make it happen. Laura Ann Langston just wants to be an influential baker. The smartly paced plot wraps up neatly, but the rich world of this debut demands sequels.Ī magical mystery tour de force with a high body count and a list of unusual suspects.Ī queer Black mage with a simple dream learns she is destined for far greater adventures. Ritter’s debut skillfully blends science with the supernatural and balances whimsy with violence. Secondary characters-including Jackaby’s house-are equally enchanting and well-drawn. Although Abigail is not a seer like Jackaby, able to pierce the glamour of New Fiddleham’s fairy-tale and folklore inhabitants, she learns that to “see the ordinary is extraordinary indeed.” Abigail’s attention to the everyday serves as a foil to Jackaby’s paranormal perception and makes her a refreshingly realistic and agreeable heroine. Aiding Jackaby, flirting with the secretive Detective Charlie Cane, and trying to avoid the wrath of Chief Inspector Marlowe and Commissioner Swift, Abigail discovers that the world is stranger and more dangerous than she ever imagined. She finds employment with the oddball supernatural investigator Jackaby, whose previous assistants have met unfortunate or fowl ends (literally).

Inspired by her father’s paleontological expeditions and frustrated by her mother’s expectations of femininity, Abigail arrives in the New England city of New Fiddleham with a suitcase of inappropriate attire and a need for money. Jackaby and his bewildered but invaluable assistant, Abigail Rook. A Sherlock Holmes–style adventure featuring the egotistical and eccentric R.F.

William ritter jackaby series