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Sorcerer to the Crown: A Sorcerer Royal Novel

Review

Sorcerer to the Crown: A Sorcerer Royal Novel

Zen Cho has the best ideas. In her debut novel, SORCERER TO THE CROWN, she spins a charming Regency tale featuring a wizard-in-chief who is black --- himself a freed slave --- and a non-white enchantress who is determined to bust up the convention of forbidding girls to practice magic.

In Zacharias and Prunella, her hero and heroine, Cho shows her greatest asset: her ability to imagine a fantasy world in which men and women confront two of the most troubling problems in our world, namely racism and sexism. Unfortunately, although the book’s premise sparkles, the heroine underwhelms, dragging the story down with her.

Britain’s first black Sorcerer Royal, Zacharias Wythe is caught between a rock and a hard place. A man who’s forced to measure every step he takes for fear of endangering his own position, Zacharias strives to do his very best by his fellow British magicians and the legacy of his own foster father, the late Sorcerer Royal Sir Stephen Wythe, who still appears as a ghost.

"...a charming Regency tale featuring a wizard-in-chief who is black --- himself a freed slave --- and a non-white enchantress who is determined to bust up the convention of forbidding girls to practice magic."

Cho deftly maneuvers Zacharias, who seethes beautifully beneath his perfectly mannered facade, through prejudice, intrigue, and the recurring problem of England’s dwindling supply of magic. But he has more issues than his colleagues.

When Zacharias delivers a guest speech at a school for “gentlewitches,” designed to tamp down young ladies’ propensity for magical abilities, he’s shocked to meet the prodigiously talented Prunella Gentleman. Just as Zacharias manages his every action meticulously, extroverted Prunella is his exact opposite, exploding with emotion, talent and wit. Of parentage her fellows deem dubious, as her mother was presumed to be an Eastern “native,” Prunella is set up to be an excellent counterpart to Zacharias.

But her Cinderella-like storyline ultimately undercuts Cho’s authorial intent with this character.

Forced to be little more than a scullery maid at the school, Prunella dreams of escaping and just happens to be the most magical girl ever. When she takes it upon herself to attach herself to Zacharias, who, true to his meek character, doesn’t shake her off, she seems admirable. That devolves into obnoxiousness as she refuses to learn magic properly while somehow demonstrating incredible abilities to save the day. Prunella is someone whom the reader wants to love as she overturns the worst conventions in British society, but she’s incredibly vexing because she manages to save the day every time, despite knowing next to nothing about magic. A well-built hero like Zacharias deserves an equally realistic heroine.

SORCERER TO THE CROWN is a brilliant effort, albeit a regrettably uneven one. This is the first volume in a trilogy, so one hopes that Cho will improve her characterization against her already stellar world-building.

Reviewed by Carly Silver on September 18, 2015

Sorcerer to the Crown: A Sorcerer Royal Novel
by Zen Cho