I recently read the book Sorcerer to the Crown by Malaysian author Zen Cho. I’m glad that I was reading it for a book club or I might not have made it past the first few chapters. If you listen to our podcast, you might have heard me mention the 4 Episode Rule which basically means if you’re sitting on the fence about a drama you should try and give it 4 episodes before dropping it. The rule doesn’t work for everybody or for every drama, but some dramas take that long to hit their stride. This book is sort of like that. It started slow and ramped up. I wasn’t fully hooked by the fourth chapter, but I was glad I stuck it out in the end.
The Plot
Sorcerer to the Crown is set in a Victorian era England where magic is an open and understood reality. In recent years, the Queen of Faerie has cut off England’s access to her land and now sorcerers are unable to go find themselves new familiars to enhance their magic. At the same time, the source of England’s magic seems to be drying up. Magical energy is becoming scarcer and scarcer in the kingdom. Zacharias Wythe is a fairly young sorcerer who was raised by the former Sorcerer to the Crown. With his adoptive father’s death, Zacharias has recently inherited the title and all the headaches that go with it. The association of gentlemen sorcerers in England is not happy about Zacharias’ appointment because he is Black. He sets off to try and secure his position by reopening the source of magic for England. On the way he meets a very powerful young Indian witch, named Prunella, who has been raised at a local finishing school for young gentlewomen of magic.
While this plot might sound rather light and fluffy, there is an underlying plot of racism, misogyny, and murder. Someone in the association of sorcerers is trying to murder Zacharias. His colleagues seem to believe that he murdered his predecessor and the only real “evidence” they have for that seems to be that he is an African and therefore untrustworthy. The finishing school where Prunella was raised after having been orphaned teaches the young women charms of self-harm in order to damp down their magical abilities and release their magic back out into the world for the men to use. Women are not believed to be strong enough physically for the rigours of proper magic use. Sure, the washerwomen, and cooks, and maids, and country witches all use magic on a daily basis; but that isn’t real magic you see.
My Thoughts
The book gets off to a very slow, boring start. It’s lots of talk about men and magic and it’s very, very dry. The book doesn’t really start to get going, in my opinion, until Prunella shows up a few chapters in. She is a strong character with strong magic and a will of her own. Even though she has been essentially raised as a maid in the school, she never really sees it that way. She sees herself as more of a daughter and co-runner to the owner of the magic school. It’s only when she steps on the wrong toes that she realizes the position she actually holds in the school. Seeing her foster mother in a different light, she sets out to make her own way in the world. And make her way she does.
Prunella’s character is fun. She’s wild and unpredictable and powerful. She’s also intelligent and creates plans based on what she understands of England’s power structure. When that structure doesn’t suit her, she twists it to fit the life she wants. Prunella is very definitely “not a nice girl”, but she is a likeable one. Many of the things that Prunella does in the book are the sorts of things we come to expect from male heroes. She does what she has to do, and what she wants to do, and doesn’t always worry about how that will affect others around her. Her character arc sort of reminds me of Cher in Clueless. She has lived a somewhat sheltered upbringing and it has given her a freedom to be selfish. But eventually she begins to think bigger than herself and works to help those less fortunate.
The book definitely ramped up over time, but I wasn’t fully invested until probably half way in. By the end of the book I couldn’t put it down and was excited to read the second story in this duology. It’s a hard book to fully recommend because of the way it starts, but ultimately I gave it a 4/5 on Goodreads. I am interested in checking out some of Zen Cho’s other books. We’ll see if the next one catches me faster than this one did.