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When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

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We’re pleased to share the cover for An Unkindness of Magicians, a new fantasy thriller by acclaimed author Kat Howard!

There is a dark secret hiding at the heart of New York City, where magic controls everything. The power of magic is fading, and Sydney—a new, rare magician with incredible power that has been unmatched in decades—may be the only person who is able to stop the darkness. But Sydney doesn’t want to help the system, she wants to destroy it…

Kat Howard explains the unique inspiration behind her new fantasy thriller:

An Unkindness of Magicians is a book that started with a word. It was a word I hadn’t seen before, one that floated past on a dictionary’s twitter feed or in a word of the day email.

Excantation. An archaic word, meaning a disenchantment, an ending of magic.

I read this word, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. An image popped into my mind—a young woman, her face a study in fury, stalking away from a world burning down behind her.

That young woman is Sydney, a magician powerful enough to escape the House of Shadows, and that world she leaves in flames is the Unseen World, the group of magicians in New York City that put her there in the first place.

Magic is power and beauty, of course, but magic is also sacrifice and pain. An Unkindness of Magicians is the story of what happens when people try to pay for their power with other people’s pain. It’s a story of magical duels that determine who lives, who dies, who runs this world. It’s the story of what happens when a sacrifice decides to fight back.

I can’t wait for you to read it.

unkindnessfrontcover_final
Designer: Executive Art Director Lizzy Bromley; Artist: Vault 49

An Unkindness of Magicians publishes September 2017 with Saga Press. From the catalog copy:

The Unseen World prides itself on remaining invisible as magicians walk the streets of New York City, rich and literally powerful.

Every twenty years, vying for power and standing during the Turning, the heads of magical houses would elect a champion, a family member or a magician-for-hire, and begin a series of duels.

But the Turning has come early, after thirteen years, and Ian Merlin, the heir to the most powerful house in the Unseen World has elected to become the champion of his father’s chief rival, House Prospero.

Enter Sydney: An unknown magician from a candidate house, an outsider easily dismissed amongst the established wealth and power of the Unseen World.

Acclaimed author Kat Howard has written a magical revenge thriller amidst the private world of New York City’s most influential citizens, who feed off each other in a hidden game of magical dominance.

What the Unseen World will soon learn is that Sydney is a formidable duelist with power that hasn’t been seen in decades, and she has a score to settle.

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