Weekend Reads: The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (Mary)

 Blame it on my rebellious streak, my desire to be unorthodox and live off the beaten path, but when I see every bookstagrammer in the world gushing and fawning over the same book, when Barnes and Noble has entire kiosks set up to display their selection of different cover art and themed merchandise from said book...I usually have no interest at all in that book.

I much prefer the books nobody has ever heard of, those quirky, out-of-the-way titles you won't see on bookstagram or in glitzy Barnes and Noble displays.

And I love, love, love historical fantasy.

So when my best friend loaned me The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett, I was utterly captivated.

In an Austen- and Bronte-esque fantasy world where no two days or nights are ever the same length, Ivy Lockwood and her sisters and mother are struggling to keep their family together after their father, a brilliant scientist, has lost his mind. With a mysterious star growing brighter in the sky, greedy relatives circling like jackals to snap up their home, and their father's invention - a model of their solar system - slowly revolving towards a catastrophic conjunction, Ivy is forced to turn to unusual sources for help. Along the way, she finds unexpected love...and unexpected abilities.

Don't get me wrong, the story is great. But it was the world building that made this book so utterly, incredibly captivating. Maybe it was the similarities to the worlds of stories like Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. Maybe it was the detailed exploration of what life would be like in a world with erratic days and nights. Whatever it was, I felt like I could get transported into this world and know my way around perfectly. It is absolutely delicious and I could read and re-read this book over and over, just to keep living in the story world.

So if you're looking for something a little off the beaten path, and you love both fantasy and Jane Austen, you will go crazy over this book. It's the best fantasy experience you've never heard of!