With nowhere else to turn, Laura applies for a job with the Bureau of the Arcane’s Conservation Corps, a branch of the US government dedicated to repairing the Dynamism so that Mechomancy can thrive. A talented young queer mage from Pennsylvania, Laura hopped a portal to New York City on her seventeenth birthday with hopes of earning her mage’s license and becoming something more than a rootworker.īut four months later, she’s got little to show for it other than an empty pocket and broken dreams. And everyone knows the future is industry and technology-otherwise known as Mechomancy-not the traditional mystical arts. Ever since the Great Rust, a catastrophic event that blighted the arcane force called the Dynamism and threw America into disarray, the country has been rebuilding for a better future. It is 1937, and Laura Ann Langston lives in an America divided-between those who work the mystical arts and those who do not. Many disagree, especially since the Great Rust, a mystical event that showed the weaknesses of relying too heavily on magic.Īs a wielder of the mystical arts in the 1930s, Laura believes that the nation’s future still lies in mystical arts, not the new trade of industry and technology referred to as Mechomancy.The author of the visionary New York Times bestseller Dread Nation returns with another spellbinding historical fantasy set at the crossroads of race and power in America. Determined as ever, Laura boards a train for New York City with dreams of earning her mage’s license and creating more opportunity for herself.Īfter six months studying as an apprentice, Laura hasn’t accomplished much. With a heavy heart and an empty pocket, Laura reluctantly applies to join the Bureau of the Arcane’s Conservation Corps. This branch of the military specifically works on correcting the events of the Great Rust so that Mechomancy can become the dominant industry. She quickly meets another powerful mage named Skylark who’s on a similar path, and he agrees to help her learn the mystic arts. But Laura can sense something more to Skylark, especially since he’s so cagey about his past. They’re soon sent on their first mission and discover that it might be more dangerous than it is exciting. Readers are very quickly dropped into a busy world that has a full and impactful history. Ireland works to make this period setting accessible to readers, and that work pays off. Laura’s world, while different in many ways, has enough similarities to our modern world to make the stakes and tensions familiar.
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