Genre: Fantasy
Series: The Harwood Spellbook #1
E-book, 168 pages
Publication: September 4, 2017 by Five Fathoms Press
Source: Personal Library
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Four months ago, Cassandra Harwood was the first woman magician in Angland, and she was betrothed to the brilliant, intense love of her life.
Now Cassandra is trapped in a snowbound house party deep in the elven dales, surrounded by bickering gentleman magicians, manipulative lady politicians, her own interfering family members, and, worst of all, her infuriatingly stubborn ex-fiancé, who refuses to understand that she’s given him up for his own good.
But the greatest danger of all lies outside the manor in the falling snow, where a powerful and malevolent elf-lord lurks...and Cassandra lost all of her own magic four months ago.
To save herself, Cassandra will have to discover exactly what inner powers she still possesses – and risk everything to win a new kind of happiness.
A witty and sparkling romantic fantasy novella that opens a brand-new series for adults from the author of Kat, Incorrigible, Masks and Shadows and Congress of Secrets.
I love books that combine Victorian Regency setting and magic and Snowspelled had it all. It’s hard to find a book that does it well, having only read a handful in my lifetime. Especially in the vein of Austen which Snowspelled succeeded at. Burgis’s world was an imaginative alternate England, Angland, where magicians were men and they catered to all things magic while the women dealt with the politics and governing society. Our heroine, Cassandra Harwood disrupted these traditions when she became the first woman accepted to The Great Library, a university for magicians. But when a spell gone wrong took away her power, Cassandra withdrew into herself.
When the story begins, we see Cassandra months after the magic accident that took away her powers, withdrawn with a 10-foot wall built around her. At the behest of her sister-in-law, Cassandra reluctantly attends a party. Within minutes of arriving to her destination things turn from bad to worse when she disturbs the trolls and enters a bargain with an Elven Lord. The Elven Lord gave Cassandra a week to find the weather wizard that has been wreaking havoc on the land. If Cassandra fails, then she has to become a part of their court and his prisoner.
Snowspelled gave me all Austen feels. Some similarities to Austen I noted were the sexism and gender difficulties woman had to endure during the regency period, the hate/love chemistry between the leads, Cassandra and Wrexham, to the effortless light British humor and smart dialogue-banter. While I’m not a big novella fan, I’m really glad I read Snowspelled. Despite it being so short, Burgis built a unique world with fully fleshed out characters from the main characters to the tertiary characters such as Miss Banks and Miss Fennel. The plot also was well written and executed from beginning to end. Unlike most novellas I read, Snowspelled’s overall story didn’t feel rush; once the mystery was solved, I felt satisfied with the ending and appreciated there being no loose ends. But the ending did leave an opening for more opportunities and I can’t wait to see more of Cassandra, Wrexham and the future lady-magicians. Overall, Snowspelled was a solid and enjoyable beginning to a series.
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