A Most Improper Magick by Stephanie Burgis

Kat, ironically, has far more freedom than her older sisters all thanks to not hitting puberty yet. She doesn’t go that way, which is fine, but does mention the limited lot of ladies, which is a usual gripe in books set in this time period. After learning that fact I kind of hoped that Burgis would take this to the obvious next step and make it clear that witchcraft was the realm of servants and the poor, which would add an interesting class element to the proceedings. In Kat’s universe magic exists but it is definitely NOT approved of by those in good society. Part of why the story works as well as it does is that Burgis doesn’t go about creating some kind of wholly alternate world. Now the whole family has been invited to a nearby estate, and Kat has only a little time to outwit various adults, save her sisters, make everything right, and defeat the only villain who has ever made her feel truly powerless. This plan doesn’t entirely work either, though, since (A) Angeline got to them first and has been experimenting and (B) it turns out that Kat has a very different, very powerful kind of magic of her own that has nothing to do with witchcraft. Thinking on her feet, Kat decides that the next best way to save Elissa is to locate her mother’s magic books and find something useful in them. The year is 1803 and Kat’s mother (now long since dead) was once a witch. Unfortunately, Kat doesn’t get five feet before her two older sisters figure out what she’s up to and put a stop to it. Top notch!Īnd she would have got away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those pesky sisters! Katherine Ann Stephenson (Kat) was wholly prepared to disguise herself as a boy and escape to London in order to save her eldest sister from having to marry that wretched Sir Neville, thereby keeping the family from financial ruin. Yet to my infinite surprise (not to say relief) I found this book charming! The characters are relatable, the magic used only when it serves the plot, the twists unexpected, and the ending infinitely satisfying. I’ve been burned once too often, you see.

It had every appearance of being one of those middle grade novels that I read and desperately hope to like only to be crushingly disappointed by the end. Into the fray leaps Kat, Incorrigible, known as A Most Improper Magick over in England. High manners plus magic equals an unbeatable combination in the eyes of many a reviewer (the jury is still out as to whether kids could care less).

They’re your Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer and the like.

Indeed they’ve been around for quite some time.

Atheneum (an imprint of Simon & Schuster)Įarly nineteenth-century child and teen novels written with an equal influence of Jane Austen and Diana Wynne Jones are nothing new.

A Most Improper Magick by Stephanie Burgis