Book Description:
THE THINKING WOMAN’S GUIDE TO REAL MAGIC is the richly imagined story of what one young woman must do to survive in a fairy tale gone wrong. Emily Croy Barker’s debut novel follows a clever, authentic protagonist down the rabbit hole, enchanting readers with a brilliantly cinematic alternate world.
Nora Fischer is a bluestocking-ish grad student with a stalled thesis, unsure future, and a broken heart. At a boring wedding reception, she finds herself in a beautiful garden near a tiny cemetery—and suddenly in a different, bizarre sort of world. Here she takes up with a group of glamorous new friends who throw incredible parties with the likes of Oscar Wilde. If things sometimes seem a little off-kilter, Nora’s having too good a time to notice, especially since her romance with the gorgeous Raclin is heating up.
When her head finally clears, Nora is shocked to find herself in a magical world where men rule with swords or spells and most women are illiterate chattel. Surviving here will take skills Nora never learned in graduate school. Her only real ally—and a reluctant one at that—is the magician Aruendiel, a grim, reclusive figure with a biting tongue and a murderous past. And it will take Nora becoming Aruendiel’s student—and learning magic herself—to survive. While waiting for a passage to her own world to open, Nora must weigh the chance to resume what she still considers her “real life” against the dangerous power of love and magic.
With echoes of everything wonderful from Grimm’s fairytales to Harry Potter to Pride and Prejudice THE THINKING WOMAN’S GUIDE TO MAGIC is sure to appeal to fans of Susanna Clarke, Neil Gaiman and Lev Grossman.
About Emily Croy Barker:
Photo credit: Maggie Soladay
Emily Croy Barker has spent more than twenty years as a journalist, after starting out as an editorial assistant at Viking. Barker had great fun turning her writing skills to fiction to produce her first novel. A graduate of Harvard University, she is currently the executive editor at The American Lawyer magazine, where she oversees international coverage. She lives in New Jersey.
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