Publishers Weekly

03/17/2014
Taylor’s alternate history debut is set in a version of Tudor-era England, where Henry IX, son of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, sits on the throne, and elemental magicians, called elemancers, have their own secret guild. Luke Ballard is an apothecary and elemancer, unwillingly investigating a potential threat against the king while teaching a young woman named Pippa who has taken refuge with him. The complicated plot soon involves not one but two possible villains and a host of other confusing elements. Taylor’s setting is well researched, with only the occasional anachronism slipping in, but the disparate strands—the mechanics and structure of elemancy, Pippa’s mysterious background, and the political and magical plot against the king—result in an incoherent story that tries to do too much at once. (May)