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Title | A College of Magics
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Author | Caroline Stevermer
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Cover Art | Tom Canty
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Publisher | SFBC - 2004
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First Printing | Tor - 1994
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Title | A Scholar of Magics
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Author | Caroline Stevermer
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Cover Art | Tom Canty
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Publisher | SFBC - 2004
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First Printing | Tor - 2004
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Title | When the King Comes Home
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Author | Caroline Stevermer
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Cover Art | David Bowers
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Publisher | Tor - 2001
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First Printing | Tor - 2000
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Category | Historical
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Faris Nallaneen, Jane Brailsfort, Tyrian, Samuel Lambert, Nicholas Fell, Hail Rosamer, Istvan, King Julian, Ludovic
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Main Elements | Witches, wizards
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Website | NA
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Magic can be learned...but can it be taught?
Two schools of magic...two gateways to adventure...
 A College of Magics
Faris Nallaneen in eighteen, tall and gawky and redheaded. She's also the Duchess of Galazon, if she can keep her wicked uncle Brinker from seizing power. To get her out of the way, Brinker ships her off the Greenlaw College, where young women with talent can learn magic. And when she walks through the gates of Greenlaw - the visible built of oak, the invisible built of the Dean's will - her life changes. She will make a friend, the witty and accomplished young English student Jane Brailsford. She'll make a deadly enemy, Menary Paganell, heiress to the kingdom of Aravill - to which Faris also has a claim. And - although it isn't exactly taught there - she'll learn magic. Magic which will save her life, her friends, and, ultimately, the world.
A Scholar of Magics
Glasscastle is Greenlaw's male equivalent, but Samuel Lambert doesn't go there as a student. He's a sharpshooter from Wyoming, late of Kiowa Bob's Wild West Show, and the Senior Fellows of Glasscastle want his skill with a pistol for their top secret Agincourt Project. Samuel anticipates no danger (apart from English snobbery and cooking), and life looks good when Jane Brailsford, his hosts's sister, comes for a visit. Until, that is, he finds himself caught up in a whirlwind of assualts, abductions, secret weapons, and sinister (though courteous) dons. It's almost too much for him...though not of course, for Jane...
When the King Came Home
When the King IV comes home . . .
Good King Julian of Aravis has been dead for two hundred years, but his kingdom still misses him. The current occupant of the throne is old and witless and has no heir. The true ruler of Aravis is the powerful Prince Bishop, who controls both church and state.
When the King comes home, all wishes will be granted.
Hail Rosmer wants to be an artist-not an ordinary artist, but a great artist, as great as the fabled Maspero, who painted the famous Archangel altarpiece in the Palace of Aravis and made Good King Julian's crown.
When the King comes home, all dreams will be made real.
One day, Hail sees a man catching fish from the river and eating it raw. The man's clothes are antique in fashion. He looks exactly like King Julian of Aravis. And there begins an adventure that takes Hail and her enigmatic companion from palace to wilderness to battlefield and teaches her, and the rest of Aravis, what happens when the King comes home in sober reality.
These novels take place in an alternate Victorian era, familiar to us, yet subtly different. One of these differences is magic. Though it is accepted that magic exists, it still seems to be doubted by many, and kept secret by those who use it. And yet, there are the two famous colleges of magic, Greenlaw and Glasscastle whose teaching techniques differ greatly.
These two losely connected novels grew on me. At first I wasn't too impressed with A College of Magics, perhaps I was expecting something more along Harry Potter, or more closely associated with the College. I thought there'd be lessons in magic, but instead Faris attended lessons in dance. Well, Greenlaw was a girls finishing school after all. Then halfway through, the story takes a turn for adventure, and that isn't the only turn it takes. A lot of the old cliches, which appear so blatant, turn out otherwise. And I loved the ending, I had to read it twice, but it was actually well done! Another thing very well done is the tension between Faris and her Uncle Brinker. I loved the scene where she dumps him out of the sleigh.
When I read the description of A Scholar of Magics I was dubious. It won't even be about the magic users? It's about a cowboy?!? Guns but no magic? But the American Samuel Lambert is officially my favorite character in the series. He's actually a very refined, well educated (better than me apparently, I didn't recognize half the literary references they made), all-round nice guy. And he had a pleasing way of screwing up from time to time, which Jane Brailsford is too well-bred to do, of course. And yes, she returns in this book too, linking the two novels together. And magic abounds in this novel, I'd say more so than in the first.
I discovered upon research that these books are considered young adult novels, which explains the lack of physical intimacy, though I had attributed that to the time period during which the novels took place. But if you are a fan of historical romance, you won't be disappointed.
I recommend these novels. Actually I enjoyed them enough that I'm going to put in the effort to track down When the King Comes Home, a kind of prequel which appears to be currently out of print.
July 2020
Well, it took some time but I finally tracked down When a King Comes Home. By this time I had pretty well forgotten the first two books so I reread the first one before starting this prequel that takes place some time before the events of the other two books. This is the tale of Hail Rossamer, an young apprentice artist learning her trade who becomes fascinated by the works of a frowned upon artist from even further in the past, Maspero. However her interest in his works brings her to find a man in rags, hiding under a bridge, eating a raw fish with his bare hands, and who has an uncanny resemblance to King Julian from the very works Maspero had created. This was quite the adventure in necromancy, though I found many characters to be rather two-dimensional, it was a tale of magic quite different fom the first book, a darker magic, and the main character herself has no magic at all beyond her skills with shape and colour.
Overall the three books were enjoyable, but clearly, not particularly memorable. The only thing I remembered from the first book was "a character on a tower doing some kind of magic to fix something" and little else. Perhaps it is related to the magical world building, it was so unclear how magic worked. On the other hand it was interesting how Aravis and the other lands are somewhere in Eastern Europe-ish, but of course do not exist in our world. However they interact with us, as they speak of events and literature known to us, and visit places such as Paris. And this new mystery country has its own culture and history, and as such the worldbuilding was intriguing and well done.
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