2022/099: Notorious Sorcerer — Davinia Evans

”All any of us can do is make the best of the cards we are dealt.”
Why? Why can’t we —“ Zagiri waved her free hand wildly. “Draw blade on the dealer, seize the deck. Make the best better. For everyone, not just us.” [loc. 3220]

Siyon Velo comes from the wrong side of town, Dockside, but he's built a successful business retrieving alchemical supplies from the other planes -- the Empyreal, the Abyssal, and the Aethereal -- and selling them to various alchemical practitioners. His clients are mostly azatani, or aristocrats: Siyon is well aware that they have privilege he can't even imagine. But when he commits an impossible act in a crowded square, he finds himself attracting the attention of several well-connected individuals. And maybe, just maybe, he can pull off another impossible feat...

Notorious Sorcerer contains an abundance of my favourite things: opera, alchemy, queer romance, card games, mannerpunk, swordfighting, women chafing at social mores, friendships between men and women. The worldbuilding is intriguing, though lightly drawn: hints of the lands beyond the city of Bezim, which is the only place in the world where the planes can be accessed, and characters from those other lands with their distinct customs and culture. There are a lot of likeable characters here, too: the azatani sisters Anahid and Zagiri Savani, who want very different things from life; Siyon, who’s reinvented himself but is still a product of his experiences; Izmirlian, who’s voyaged extensively but yearns for further horizons; even Anahid’s husband Nihath, stubbornly adhering to the classical methodology of alchemy as laid out centuries before. Alchemy colours every aspect of life in Bezim, from the suits of cards (each with their Power) to the plots of popular operas, from the concordances of emotions to the City itself, divided by the geological consequences of an alchemical endeavour. That it's technically illegal is just one more way in which social class manifests: the alchemists of the Summer Club (to which Siyon yearns to be admitted) can get away with rather more than a street-wise supplier of infernal kelp and phoenix feathers.

This is a novel about alchemy, about balance, about draconian policing and social negotiation: but at heart it’s a story about finding one’s place in the world, and the importance of living in one’s own life. I liked it immensely — perhaps even more on second reading, when I could see how cleverly the plot had been constructed. [Disclaimer: I should confess that I've known the author (mostly online) for lo these many years. Nevertheless, I was fully prepared to nitpick like mad: but I didn't need to, because this is a brilliant, engaging, emotional whirlwind of a novel, which made me laugh out loud and also reduced me to tears.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this honest review. UK publication date is 13 September 2022.