Critics' Opinion:
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Published Nov 2021
384 pages
Genre: Romance
Publication Information
Red White & Royal Blue meets Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in debut author Freya Marske's A Marvellous Light, featuring an Edwardian England full of magic, contracts, and conspiracies.
Robin Blyth has more than enough bother in his life. He's struggling to be a good older brother, a responsible employer, and the harried baronet of a seat gutted by his late parents' excesses. When an administrative mistake sees him named the civil service liaison to a hidden magical society, he discovers what's been operating beneath the unextraordinary reality he's always known.
Now Robin must contend with the beauty and danger of magic, an excruciating deadly curse, and the alarming visions of the future that come with it―not to mention Edwin Courcey, his cold and prickly counterpart in the magical bureaucracy, who clearly wishes Robin were anyone and anywhere else.
Robin's predecessor has disappeared, and the mystery of what happened to him reveals unsettling truths about the very oldest stories they've been told about the land they live on and what binds it. Thrown together and facing unexpected dangers, Robin and Edwin discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles―and a secret that more than one person has already died to keep.
"Marske debuts with a breathtaking queer romantic fantasy set in Edwardian England...Sensual erotic scenes, an intriguing magic system, and a puzzling mystery combine to make this novel a wonder. Fans of C.L. Polk's Witchmark, period queer novels, and creative fantasy will all clamor for more." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Marske's debut is a delightful blend of Edwardian fantasy and romance, with enough twists and questions to have readers clamoring for the next in the planned series." - Library Journal (starred review)
"A murderous hedge maze, a game of booby-trapped boating, searing intimacy and a doozy of a final act make for a read that's in turn funny, romantic and anxiety-inducing." - Shelf Awareness
"Freya Marske has done something special with A Marvellous Light...The prose is sublime, the world-building top-notch, and the magic system is fascinating and unique. But what made me the happiest is how delightfully queer this story is. Robin and Edward have my whole heart, and I adored watching their relationship blossom. In the end, I can give no higher praise than this: I wish this world that Marske has created was real." - TJ Klune, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The House in the Cerulean Sea
"Mystery! Magic! Murder! Long looks full of yearning! This book is a confection, both marvelous and light." - Alix E. Harrow, author of The Once and Future Witches
"That sublime prose! Her astonishing gift for imagery! And, of course, her bountiful and endless talent for writing some extremely sexy scenes. A Marvellous Light is all that and more. Perfect." - Jenn Lyons, author of The Ruin of Kings
This information about A Marvellous Light was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Freya Marske is one of the co-hosts of Be the Serpent, a Hugo-nominated podcast about SF, fandom and literary tropes, and her work has sold to Analog and been shortlisted for Best Fantasy Short Story in the Aurealis Awards. She lives in Australia.
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