The Magician’s Daughter, H.G. Parry

About the Book

It is 1912, and for the last seventy years magic has all but disappeared from the world. Yet magic is all Biddy has ever known.

Orphaned in a shipwreck as a baby, Biddy grew up on Hy-Brasil, a legendary island off the coast of Ireland hidden by magic and glimpsed by rare travelers who return with stories of wild black rabbits and a lone magician in a castle. To Biddy, the island is her home, a place of ancient trees and sea-salt air and mysteries, and the magician, Rowan, is her guardian. She loves both, but as her seventeenth birthday approaches, she is stifled by her solitude and frustrated by Rowan’s refusal to let her leave. He himself leaves almost every night, transforming into a raven and flying to the mainland, and never tells her where or why he goes.

One night, Rowan fails to come home from his mysterious travels. When Biddy ventures into his nightmares to rescue him, she learns not only where he goes every night, but the terrible things that happened in the last days of magic that caused Rowan to flee to Hy-Brasil. Rowan has powerful enemies who threaten the safety of the island. Biddy’s determination to protect her home and her guardian takes her away from the safety of Hy-Brasil, to the poorhouses of Whitechapel, a secret castle beneath London streets, the ruins of an ancient civilization, and finally to a desperate chance to restore lost magic. But the closer she comes to answers, the more she comes to question everything she has ever believed about Rowan, her origins, and the cost of bringing magic back into the world.

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Releases February 28th

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My Thoughts

“She’d been pretending her whole life, and now she wasn’t even sure who she was pretending to be.”

Growing up on a hidden island with a mage and his familiar seems like the perfect childhood. But being cut off from the world has been difficult for young Biddy. Sure, she has Rowan, and his familiar Hutch, a golden rabbit, but it can get lonely, especially because she can only talk to Hutch when he’s not in rabbit form. Because she’s not a mage, she doesn’t have access to the magic Rowan is always in contact with.

Biddy dreams of the world outside the protection of Hy-Brasil. She dreams of magic and all the possibilities that used to exist before the Council and mages started hoarding it from the world. She dreams of what would happen if it were readily available like it used to be. With so many dreams, one of them is sure to come to fruition.

Was I the only one who wanted Biddy and the Púca to become besties?

Rowan is Robinhood-esque in the way he steals magic, giving it to those that need it. The Magician’s Daughter is a shining example of what’s great with Historical Fantasy. The characters and setting are richly detailed and spot on. I adored Hy-Brasil, with the ruins, the Yew trees, the rugged coastline, and all the rabbits. The island is an idyllic place to grow up on.

This book is leisurely in the unfolding, but it works well for the story. I enjoyed the magical elements we saw and would love to see more. While this is a complete standalone, it would be nice if Parry revisited the characters down the road because I have high hopes for a Biddy/Púca bff story arc. Overall, this is a super fun read.

My thanks to Redhook Books, for the ARC.

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