The Left-Handed Booksellers of London

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To unravel the secrets of a murderous Ancient Sovereign, the booksellers must investigate centuries of disappearances and deaths.

Although, now that the world is created, I could see this being the first entry in a fun, light-hearted series. After reading the absolutely abysmally plotted and paced Angel Mage, I was walking into this one with some trepidation. A different practical yet magical Susan (Terry Pratchett’s creation) whom “our” Susan sometimes brought to mind.It's plot forward, not a lot of characterization or world building beyond the series of dangers the characters face, often in a row like a gauntlet.

There are left-handed booksellers who are all brawn and speed and rawr, and the right-handed ones, who are the brains and magic and thinkers. There’s no real point to the extended clan of magicians engaging in book trade — except for our cultural knowledge that booksellers are odd and awesome and probably a bit out of this world* — because, as Stephen King once said, “Books are uniquely portable magic”. I was familiar with these because of the Chronicles of Prydain, so it was interesting to see them in another context.Recommended for high school libraries and for readers looking for fantasy with a historical literary flair. The only change that would have raised that, in my opinion, was if author Garth Nix had made them librarians. Boy, did this story have all manner of mythical beasties who were chasing after our main character Susan for reasons unknown.