From Publishers Weekly
A gentle fantasy set in turn-of-the-century Paris, this novel's "magic" takes varied forms--some sorcerous (an anarchist's bomb transformed into a feathered hat) and some technological (an early motorcar ride). Young ladies of good families are sent to Greenlaw college to acquire the social graces and become marriageable. But some also learn varying degrees of witchery, although it is expressly forbidden to practice magic on campus. Teen hellion Faris Nallaneen, Duchess of Galazon, her best friend/social arbiter Jane Brailsford and Faris's blood enemy are all expelled from Greenlaw after exercising hitherto unguessed magic talents. Faris and Jane head to Paris, where Faris discovers that she is to inherit not only the throne of Galazon but also the supernatural post of Warden of the North. One wishes Stevermer ( The Serpent's Egg) had described the particulars of this elevation, but in fact this narrative is weighted more toward romance than to conventional fantasy. Though Faris can see things no one else can, she also endures custom fittings of haute couture , masked balls, marriage proposals by middle-aged kings and ambitious socialists alike, attacks by politically correct highwaymen and an attempted poisoning on the Orient Express as she attempts to take her rightful title. Clever and witty at its best, this is generally a pleasant read.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
In this worthwhile addition to alternate-world fantasizing, Faris Nallaneen, a young noblewoman in a quasi-Edwardian society, goes to college to learn magic and upon graduation is promptly dragged into a lively and perilous series of intrigues. The book splits into two separate stories at the point where Faris has finished her training, but balancing against this structural flaw is much wit, intelligence, and imagination. This is one of those books that is less successful than the author intended but far from a failure. Historically knowledgeable fantasy readers will appreciate it. Roland Green
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
The first adult-oriented fantasy from the author of various juveniles (River Rats, 1992, etc.), set in an intriguing, not-so- different early 20th-century alternate world where magic works unobtrusively. Faris, the young Duchess of Galazon, is sent to Greenlaw College on the French coast by her uncle Brinker. She proves a less than brilliant student but nevertheless acquires a faithful bodyguard in Tyrian, a firm friend in Jane, and an enemy in Menary of Aravill, whose father, King Julian, claims Galazon. Also, inexplicably to Faris, the dean of the college explains that Faris is the warden of the north, one of the four magical guardians of the world, and that her particular task is to mend the magical rift that her mother mistakenly opened. Faris doubts that she has any magic--until, after Menary has trapped Tyrian and turned him into a cat, she turns him back and sets Menary's hair aflame. Later, Brinker summons Faris home; accompanied by Jane, she agrees to become ambassador to Aravill, only to discover that Brinker intends to marry her off to Julian. The malevolent Menary shows up and attempts to destroy Faris by magic, only to be dispatched into the rift; Tyrian is killed defending Faris against the king; and there's an appropriate but not altogether satisfying windup. Strikingly set, pleasingly peopled, and cleverly plotted. Stevermer has made a successful transition to adult entertainment; which, as others have discovered, is by no means as easy as it looks. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"An intriguing, not-so-different early twentieth-century alternate world where magic works unobtrusively . . . . Strikingly set, pleasingly peopled, and cleverly plotted!"--Kirkus (pointer review)
"Delightful."--The Washington Post
"One of the most entertaining and satisfying fantasies to come along in some time!"--Locus
"Delightful."--The Washington Post
"One of the most entertaining and satisfying fantasies to come along in some time!"--Locus
Book Description
Teenager Faris Nallaneen is the heir to the small northern dukedom of Galazon. Too young still to claim her title, her despotic Uncle Brinker has ruled in her place. Now he demands she be sent to Greenlaw College. For her benefit he insists. To keep me out of the way, more like it!
But Greenlaw is not just any school-as Faris and her new best friend Jane discover. At Greenlaw students major in . . . magic.
But it's not all fun and games. When Faris makes an enemy of classmate Menary of Aravill, life could get downright . . . deadly.
But Greenlaw is not just any school-as Faris and her new best friend Jane discover. At Greenlaw students major in . . . magic.
But it's not all fun and games. When Faris makes an enemy of classmate Menary of Aravill, life could get downright . . . deadly.
About the Author
Caroline Stevermer grew up on a dairy farm in southeastern Minnesota. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania with a B.A. degree in the History of Art. Almost twenty years later, she learned to drive a car. Her interests include Mark Twain, baseball, the portrait miniatures of Nicholas Hilliard, and learning how to parallel park. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
A COLLEGE OF MAGICS
Volume One
The Structure of the World
1
Greenlaw College
Faris Nallaneen arrived at the gates of Greenlaw on the same day winter did. It was late afternoon, just as gray daylight began to fade into blue twilight. Behind her brougham, hired in Pontorson to bear her on the last stage of her journey, the causeway stretched back to the coast, a spine of paved road amid the sands of low tide. Before the carriage and pair was the wooden gate of Greenlaw, and in it the gatekeeper's grille with its little green shutter, tightly latched.
As Faris watched from the carriage window, Gavren got stiffly down from the box to knock at the green shutter. Gavren was not an old man, not yet, but there was gray brindled in his hair, and the marks of a long journey were plain in his bearing.
The offshore wind blew steadily, an edge of frost in it. The coach horses shifted in harness, heads down against the cold. Daylight was failing fast. Soon the green shutter would lose its color and fade into the grays of sea, sky, and stone.
Gavren grimaced at the chill and knocked again. As he dropped his hand, the shutter snapped open and a face appearedat the grille. It was a round face, chapped red, its owner grim at the call out into the weather.
"Who goes there?" the gatekeeper demanded.
"The duchess of Galazon and her escort," replied Gavren.
The gatekeeper regarded Gavren for a moment, then looked past him at the well-worn brougham and its tired horses. He eyed Reed, the weary driver, who had remained on the box, and sneered at Faris, the only passenger. He glanced at the sky. There was at least a chance of sleet. His face folded into satisfaction. "We have no use for titles here." He closed the shutter.
Gavren let out a long slow breath and knocked again.
No answer.
Faris opened the carriage door. "Let me."
"We must put up the horses and I suppose we'll have to beg our way in to do it. But try to maintain some decorum. If you give in to them at once, you'll have no mercy from them," Gavren said. "Stay there and let me handle things."
Bunching her creased black skirts, Faris sprang down from the brougham and joined Gavren at the gate.
"You may be forbidden to use your title once you are a student, but don't abandon it before you've even seen the place. Don't sacrifice it before you make it do you some good."
Faris nodded at Gavren, her pale blue eyes serious, her brows knitted. Although she was eighteen, the black serge traveling suit she wore, twenty years out of fashion, in a style twenty years too old for her, made her look like atwelve-year-old playing dress up, in clothes nearly too small for her. Her red hair sprang untidily from beneath the brim of her uncompromising hat, and her bony wrists showed distinctly in the gap between frayed cuffs and worn leather gloves.
"Don't worry. They'll have no mercy from me." She smiled crookedly at Gavren. Her bitter smile revealed uneven, almost pointed teeth, and made her long nose look even longer. She glanced up at Reed, who was watching from the box, smiled again to herself, and knocked briskly on the shutter.
After a moment, the shutter snapped open. "Well?"
Faris put a hand against the gate to lean close to the grille. "It will be a cold night. My companions and I require lodging. We can pay well."
The gatekeeper studied her and sneered again. "Your name and business?"
"Both too trivial to concern you. I am but a humble acolyte, come to apply for a place at Greenlaw College. My uncle Brinker thinks I will prove an apt student."
The gatekeeper regarded her with loathing for an instant, then clapped the shutter closed. There was a hasty scrape and the wooden gate swung open.
Faris Nallaneen, duchess of Galazon, nodded again to Gavren. He rolled his eyes as he took her elbow, helped her back into the brougham, and took the seat beside her. Reed drove the carriage through the gates of Greenlaw.
Once on the other side, Faris put her hand on Gavren's sleeve. His rap on the ceiling called Reed to a halt. Thegatekeeper closed the gate and barred it, then turned to the brougham with an expectant air as Faris opened her door and leaned inelegantly out.
"So this is Greenlaw." Faris looked about her at the courtyard and the narrow street before her, winding steeply up the stone mount. "And these are the gates, the visible built of oak, the invisible built of the Dean's will. But both guarded by the same man."
She gave the gatekeeper a faint smile of apology. "It's the custom to tip heavily, isn't it? I'm so sorry I can't oblige you. It would look as though I tried to bribe my way in. Absurd, don't you agree? But I can't risk it." She closed the carriage door and settled back into her seat.
From the box, Reed tossed the gatekeeper a coin. "See you do a better job keeping her in than you did keeping us out." He managed reins and whip and the carriage moved on.
"We're to stay at the White Fleece," Gavren told Faris. "Send word to us when you are accepted and Reed and I will go back to tell your uncle the news. If Reed can get this barge all the way up the street, we'll leave you at the door of the college. If not, we will escort you on foot."
Faris craned her neck to see what she could of the closely built street. "Which one is the White Fleece?"
"On our right, just ahead."
"Excellent." Faris rapped smartly on the ceiling of the carriage. Reed drew rein. Grateful to stop, the horses halted a few yards from the White Fleece.
"I will see the proctors when I'm ready," said Faris, beforeGavren could protest, or Reed enliven the coach horses. She opened the carriage door and sprang down into the street. "Just now I'm cold and hungry and I smell of horse. All three of us will put up at the White Fleece or I go not a yard farther. When I've had a hot bath, a decent meal, and a full night's sleep, I will consider the proctors."
Gavren let out a breath of slow control. "Very well. There is no need to make a scene in the street about it."
Faris smiled. "Great need. They must take me for a shrew, not a mouse. And see you don't forget to 'your grace' me."
"You put no stock in such things," Reed said. He looked at Gavren. "Does she?"
"They have no use for titles here, so if I don't use mine, they'll think I'm meek."
"God forbid," said Reed. As Faris looked down her long, red-tipped nose at him, he added hastily, "your grace." Since he dressed with the same severity as Gavren, he seemed far older than Faris, though the difference in their ages was barely five years.
Gavren folded his arms and sighed. "Then command us, your grace. Must we keep these nags standing much longer in the street, your grace? If they freeze in their tracks, doubtless the hostler at Pontorson will demand damages. Your grace."
"Stable them, by all means. If they freeze in their tracks, they'll make very evil-looking statuary and the rest of the street is pleasantly gothic. It would be a pity to spoil it with hired horses."
At the White Fleece, though titles were of no use, money secured them rooms and a large meal, served at one of the well-scrubbed tables in the common room.
Faris sat between her companions, oblivious of the stares of the other diners in the room. Gloves pulled off and crumpled in her lap, the cuffs of her suit halfway to her elbows, she was too hungry to worry about her appearance. She took up her spoon with exaggerated care, but after the first taste of soup she discarded her affected manners and devoted herself to the meal with enthusiasm.
When the bowls were cleared and the plates were empty, the innkeeper paused to ask them if they cared for a sweet or a savory to finish.
"Your grace?" asked Gavren, with heavy emphasis.
Faris put her mug down and nodded graciously at the innkeeper. "Yes, please."
"Which, your grace?" asked Reed, patiently.
"Both, please."
The innkeeper went away without acknowledging Gavren's signal to replenish their glasses.
"Greedy, aren't you?" Reed said to Faris. He turned to Gavren. "Was she born this way, or was she raised to it?"
"She was raised to know better, though she doesn't always behave the way she knows she should. Perhaps she'll learn better here."
Serenely, Faris began to butter a morsel of bread. "If the proctors accept me, this could be my last decent meal for years. If they don't, we'll have a long trip back to Galazon, and a longer explanation to make when we get there."
"The proctors will accept you." Gavren's voice was heavy and cold. "It's all been arranged."
"Of course it has. I don't know why I need to be involved at all. Everything's been arranged. Did you know, Reed, we have a spell at home in Galazon far more powerful than any I can possibly learn here? I used it to open the gates. Didn't you hear me? Just those three words--my uncle Brinker." She swirled the ale left in her mug and looked thoughtful. "I wonder how much the proctors of Greenlaw College cost him? I wonder how much bad behavior he was able to afford to pay them to overlook."
Gavren banged his mug on the table. "You put that right out of your mind, young madam. You're going to Greenlaw College and you are not, most certainly not, going to get yourself expelled." He gestured emphatically for more ale. When the mugs had been refilled, he turned back to Faris. "Do you think that failing here will get your uncle out of the wardship of Galazon? Do you think antagonizing the proctors will accomplish anything? What are you planning? Do you think you can fail your admission? If you expect us to wet-nurse you back to Galazon so we can be torn into strips by your uncle's observatio...
