Brother’s RuinEmma Newman
Tor.com
March 14th, 2017
Charlotte Gunn has a secret. She has strong magical ability.
She has to keep it quiet, or the Royal Society will come for her, and she’d have to give up her life, her engagement, and her family could be punished for hiding her.
Except her family doesn’t know.
Her brother finds out when her father contacts the Royal Society to have him tested, because they pay families for talented magic users, and her father has gotten indebted over his head. Her brother, Benjamin, isn’t very strongly talented. Charlotte can fix that.
As long as she can hide nearby and do his test for him, they’ll take Benjamin and leave her alone. Since she’ll test well, they’ll pay a lot for him.
However she ends up in over her head when she stumbles onto a conspiracy of Royal Society mages, and it’s one that could end with her father dead and her brother apprenticed to the man at the center of it all.
This is a gaslamp fantasy, and it works quite well. Newman always writes characters you get drawn into, and this book looks to be the start of a really good series. Can’t wait for the next one.
JL Jamieson is a strange book nerd who writes technical documents by day, and book news, reviews, and other assorted opinions for you by night. She is working on her own fiction, and spends time making jewelry to sell at local conventions, as well as stalking the social media accounts of all your favorite writers.