A river of magic flows under the bookshops of London (is it only London?) Lady Fate the source of control of this underworld system. But did she create it and if not, who did? The book owners are carefully selected, not just anyone can own a magical bookshop. The bookshops themselves determine who can own the shops. The bookstores also determine even the specific customers that enter and are allowed to find that certain volume they need for their collection.

Basically, the bookshops are the ultimate arbiters of their existence and their interaction with the world at large; the owners, spiders in the corners weaving their stock with specific needs of customers. And dealing with other bookshop owners, each in their own spider’s nest of selections for sale.

This is a wonderful idea. I mean: bookstores who are sentient and influence sales, literally. Cassandra Fairfax inherits one such shop from her previous mentor, Chiron who unexpectedly passed but not before sending out two letters to prospective new owners. A bookshop such as his cannot go to just anyone.

The saturnine and fascinating Lowell Sharpe misses his chance by not noticing the letter in time and Cassandra gets the shop. This stirs up the other bookstore owners (probably mostly because Cassandra was once Cassy Holt, talented book thief). But this forms the foundation of a well-constructed and pleasing relationship between Sharpe and Cassandra. Sharpe is as fascinating as his brother is an odious toad; who is furious Sharpe missed his chance to own Chiron’s shop. There is a cabal of bookshop owners who are represented by specific Tarot cards and whose machinations on the nasty side and Cassandra really wants to avoid them altogether.

Ms. Summers throws us into the mix of bookshops failing, power struggles and the underground magic losing its potency and events get really tense: will the bookshops survive the thinning of magic? Or will this compelling world fade?

Trust me, it’s worth finding out! ~~ Sue Martin

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