The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry

3.5/5

This book was a lovely and funny and strange read all in one. The prose itself took a bit of time to get used to but once it clicked it was rather smooth and humorous at the same time.

Delly was a really great character and I loved her transformation from street kid to almost respectable lady who still swore like a street kid. I loved the sense of humor in the book that she provided and there were so many great lines.

The story however did get a little dragged on after the half way point. I would have loved to have the bodyguard and mystery part of it be a better focus instead of the laboratory scheme afterwards. It just felt more fun and interesting.

The other characters were also a bit of hit and miss. Winn and Dok were great but I feel like the rest of the crew were not as interesting. There was just so many of them unnecessary. Their relationships between each other were a bit strange too, I couldn’t quite figure out if they did or did not like each other sometimes honestly.

Overall though it was a fun read between serious books.

This is an oddball fantasy set in a sort of pseudo-Victorian-ish setting that might look and sound similar to what a modern author from New York would imagine - which is to say, nothing whatsoever like anything that would actually have been seen or heard in Victorian England. American authors should probably be banned from ever trying to write anything resembling an English accent; the effect here was equivalent to taking the highlights of Dick Van Dyke's attempt at a cockney accent and writing an entire book with it.

That aside, if you can manage to imagine this novel is set on a completely different planet that does not have anything to do with Americans attempting to riff off what they think lower class British accents and class politics might be like in a fantasy-history world ... it's still a very odd book. Silly and fun at times, a fairly quick read, light romance (mostly lesbian), and a not very mysterious murder mystery; it's less about figuring out who's responsible for attempted murder (which doesn't take long) and more about figuring out why and extracting revenge, with a slow-burning romance along the way.

The motivations and reasoning of our group of heroines is rather hard to follow at times - somehow it seems to make perfect sense when in hot pursuit of someone who has just fled town for the entire group to stay put for 4 days working on combat practice and other lessons and completely failing to pursue; and then once it's established that the target of their hunt is a drug addict, somehow the simplest solution is to ... become drug dealers also, with a better product, and infiltrate the manufacturing supply chain? None of which makes the slightest bit of sense really. The main characters (a lower-class fire witch and an upper class half-troll) are at least reasonably likable, though it takes a while for the fire witch to start to develop a bit of character. Their oddball companions include a genteel old lady necromancer, a were-pig, and various wizards and fighters, all women also. Anyway, if you like Victorian-ish fantasy and slow-burn very light lesbian romance with an absolutely awful impression of Victorian-ish settings, class lines, and accents, this book may be for you?

Ms. Waggoner has a way with words. Here she invents a thieves cant that works and which is very funny. Her heroine is a fairly standard up-from the gutter but with amazing abilities if only she would try type, with an eye for the main chance when she's not too drunk. The author gives her a lot of good lines. She has a comical mother, and acquires a comical mouse. Her main attempted acquisition, however, is an heiress, whom she sets out to seduce. (Many of Ms Wggoner's characters are resentful of the unearned privileges of the posh set, but are eager to join them, much like typical members of the British Parliamentary Labour Party).

The plot is fair, but I liked it above all for the writing. The heroine's semi-deliberate malapropisms, invented words and other verbal squibs are delightful, and the supporting cast are all allowed their moments of linguistic grace too. I recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ace for the arc of this book.

This book was incredibly fun to read. The victorian setting paired with fantasy elements created a very whimsical atmosphere. I have to say that Winn was my favorite character by far. She was so lovely. I also enjoyed how much everyone's accents and dialects came through in the writing, I could really hear them speak, especially Dell, our main character. And what a character she was; gutterwitch and petty thief turned bodyguard and bounty hunter. Her relationship with Winn was quite sweet, although not as developed as I would have liked. It seemed that Winn let Dell get away with everything, even when she said hurtful things to her. I would have liked to see a bit more world building, given this is a society where not only humans, but trolls, and half-trolls live. The ending was actually quite anticlimactic and I probably would have given the book 4 stars had it ended less flat. Overall, it was a fun and easy read with a cute sapphic romance, but lacked some depth that I feel would have aided the story in its entirety.