This first novel by Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, is an intriguing exploration of the alternate history of magic’s restoration to England during the war against Napoleon. Mr.. Norrell, an unlikeable old man who dares to make the jump from theoretical magic to practical magic(!), struggles to keep magic in England completely under his control but is forced by circumstance to take on Jonathan Strange as a student. Strange’s attitude toward magic is much more open and welcoming, eager to make magic available to the English public. Lurking in the background is a malignant fairy king, to whom Norrell owes a terrible debt. There a several storylines going on in the novel that weave together and overlap while each maintaining its own integrity as a subsidiary tale. When Clarke brings them all together at the novel’s climax, the effect is stunning.

A lengthy but delightful romp through the possible alternative history of the United Kingdom, I urge everyone interested in bringing magic back into the modern world to read the record of Strange and Norrell.

This wonderful series of 5 novels follows the escapades of Felix Castor, an exorcist in contemporary London, who uses the tunes of his flute to bind the ghosts which possess the living and force them back into the shadow-world where they belong. In the London where Felix lives, the dead have made themselves known and are openly moving among the living in a variety of ways and Felix’s skills are in frequent demand. Each of the five books is a wonderful stand-alone novel in which Felix struggles to save both his clients and himself from the ghosts and demons which hide in plain sight all around us, though the overarching arc of the five books describes his attempt to free his friend from the demon Asmodeus (the demon which Felix himself inadvertently linked to his friend’s soul).

This first book in the series, The Devil You Know, introduces us to Felix’s world and characters–both living and departed– that populate it. The author includes fascinating descriptions of how magic and exorcism work and how the dead are able to cross over into the realm of the living.

The author makes one choice at the end of the first book which I would not have made, but it is the only way that makes that character able to have not only a recurring role in the series but a vital one in one of the later books of the quintet. I am happy to suggest that you add the Felix Castor books to your reading list!

This is one of my all-time favorite series by a fantastic author! A lyric prose-poem that is a love song to London and magic! The word-paintings of London in this first book of the Midnight Mayor series are breathtaking and the way in which Matthew Swift uses the contemporary magic of cities in general –London, in particular–makes us realize how magic is all around us if only we open our eyes to see it, even in the subways! (In an interview, Kate Griffin said that scene in the subway was probably her favorite in the book! It was a good thing I had just passed that scene when I found her interview!) I urge you to add Madness of Angels and the other Midnight Mayor books to your bedside table! 

As the story opens, Matthew Swift finds himself breathing once again, lying in bed in his London home. Except that it’s no longer his bed, or his home. And the last time this sorcerer was seen alive, an unknown assailant had gouged a hole so deep in his chest that his death was irrefutable…despite his body never being found. Matthew realizes that he is not entirely himself when he glimpses his reflection in a mirror and his eyes (which had been brown) are now the “pale, brilliant albino blue of the cloudless winter sky, and I was no longer the only creature that watched from behind their lens.”

Matthew (and the creatures that are also looking through those albino blue eyes of his) goes on to search for his killer and stop the killer and his dark minions, especially the shadow-entity Matthew comes to refer to as Hunger as the being is the killer’s hunger for power and dominion externalized. As Matthew finds each of his killer’s assistants and strikes them down in a variety of impressive ways, we meet the Bag Lady and the Beggar King and the other archetypes that populate the shadows of London. A Madness of Angels and the Midnight Mayor series are exquisite!