Review: Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

After a blood test, I felt I deserved to stop in at a book shop and treat myself. I picked out two books – one, Uprooted, is by Naomi Novik, an author I know and appreciate. The other was Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho. I started reading it when I got home and I didn’t put it down until five hours later, once I was finished.

Cho deals with racism in regency England, something that is very brave to even consider doing, and then dares to go on and tackle sexism. By creating an institute of sorcery, Cho very cleverly avoids insulting any historic corporations while being reminiscent of every government we’ve ever studied. And by introducing Zacharias Wythe as the Sorcerer Royal we have to put aside our white-washed glasses to read the novel through a black, ex-slave’s perspective. His anger at his situation, limited by his despair at it ever changing, resonates with society today – and sure as hell reminds us white people that racism isn’t just ‘something that happens’, but is a ridiculous, primitive ideal that should be eradicated immediately.

Woah, sorry, I’ll pull the social justice thing back a bit. But seriously, this book is clever and funny and I was enchanted by the characters – Prunella, despite her unfortunate name, was angry and wild and altogether amusing with how she refused to be cowed by the men in her life. Half the time I was reading her, I expected her to roll her eyes and look at the camera like she was in The Office.

The negatives: well, I don’t have much negative to say. The writing style was good, although Cho fell into the familiar trap of letting her readers get bored in the middle of the book – just before she could theoretically give us more action and after all the exposition had happened – but it’s short and is not enough for me to really lose interest in the book. The romance, as well, might be a negative to some of us – I didn’t deem it unnecessary but it wasn’t an integral part of the plot. However, I did enjoy the final romance, and I thought the pair well matched when they finally got together – no spoilers, so I won’t mention their names. I was happy to see that romance didn’t actually take up much of the plot, falling to the wayside, but it was still realistic and you could see the progression.

My rating: 8/10. I enjoyed the book, but the writing style was a little simple, I suppose. I felt there could have been more of it – more explanation of magic, more wonder, more battles. Ultimately, I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, fantastic read on a lazy evening in with a dog to cuddle and a bottle of wine/hot chocolate.