Wild Magic

The search for both identity and magic propels Ledger’s entertaining if slightly disjointed debut fantasy. Queer warlock Rudy Renfew makes his living as the only Curse-Breaker in Glasgow, answering to the local deity Clockwork Man, “the god of the subway and city centre.” When Laura Baxter asks for Rudy’s help finding her missing sister, Leigh-Anne, he agrees despite the job being well outside of his usual purview. His investigation takes him to the wilderness surrounding Loch Lomond, where he discovers a thriving community with a strange power. The magic system fascinates with its close ties to Scottish mysticism, but how it works—especially how the gods fit into this world—is never fully made clear. As Rudy inches closer to his mission’s end, the initial excitement of the mystery wears off as the investigation, the fantasy elements, and a budding romance for Rudy jarringly mix, and he finds Leigh Anne safely ensconced among Loch Lomond’s magic practitioners. Ledger makes up for this apparent anticlimax with a clever last-minute twist. Readers of folkloric fantasy will have plenty of fun with this one, as long as they don’t think too hard about the jumbled details. (July)