2013 book 167

Emily Croy Barker's A Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic
So let me start by saying that I find this title completely unappealing, and would have no interest in reading this if it wasn't for comparisons to things like Discovery of Witches and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (the first is accurate enough, though that book focuses much more on romance; I don't remember enough about Jonathan Strange to judge that one). Anyway, this is the story of Nora, a struggling grad student (at what I'm pretty sure is supposed to be DUKE, based on local references!) who goes to a wedding in Asheville and accidentally walks through a portal into the fairy world. Whoops. And Nora really should have read more fairy stories, because she's soon up to her ears in enchantments and glamour (literally) and has no idea what's going on. I wish this part had been a bit shorter, because a heroine without willpower or brainpower a) is frustrating to read about, and b) leads to squicky feelings when you realize she can't really consent to fairy sex. So that's all a little gross and I could have done with less of it (not to mention this book is already kind of long).

Luckily she's soon rescued by a nearby magician who's enmeshed in some local politics and has a pretty crazy backstory of his own, and eventually asks him to train her (that doesn't happen till like halfway through, but is part of the plot description, so I guess it's not a spoiler) and things pick up from there. Proactive Nora is much more interesting. I could have done without the conceit of Nora writing imaginary letters to her friend back home (the same information could have been conveyed more easily and naturally as part of the main narrative, I thought) but that only comes up a couple of times. It looks like this is the start of a series, and ends in a pretty interesting place, which I guess means I'll read it. B/B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in August.