Notorious Sorcerer by Davinia Evans
Rating: 
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
I have no idea how I stumbled upon this book, but I was delighted when I finally picked it up to read.
This is the beginning of a trilogy and at the time I am writing this book, I have only read the first two books, and will probably pick the third one soon enough because I need to know how it ends.
Notirous sorcerer follows Siyon Velo, who dreams of becoming an Alchemist, a user of high magic, but instead just does errands and causes some fights and chaos to try to scrape enough money to actually have enough lessons of alchemy/magic. But he is more capable of magic than he knows, so he accidentally (because he has a good heart) manages to do something that is technically impossible alchemy wise, which plummets him into high society, and well, poor man has no idea what he is doing yet somehow everyone thinks he does or expects him to now be the one saving the day every time.
We also follow two sisters who end up heavily embroiled in Siyon’s world, Zagiri and Anahid. Anahid is a high society lady, in a loveless marriage to a very famous alchemist who is using her as a way to hide his love and relationship with a man (who has a lot of secrets). And what Anahid is trying her best to do is not ruin her reputation or the chances for her younger sister for when she decides to debut. Zagiri on her own side isn’t too keen to debut, she wants to be part fo the Dockside world, of the clans that patrol it and of the “fun”.
To me, the city of Bezim was a bit vague and was not fleshed out very well, the world building was sometimes a bit like it was floating just above ground but had no tether, so it made the first chapters hard to grasp and get into. So, why did I rate this so high?
Because damn, the characters carry this in a refreshing way.
Siyon is a mess, and he knows it, and is desperately trying to balance the fact he wants to achieve his dream and that he probably never will. Part of his plot puts him in a “what if you achieved your dream right now and it wasn’t exactly what you thought it’d be?”, he is inducted as an Alchemist, but then all hell keeps breaking loose and somehow the adultier adults keep looking to him to fix it. So he keeps finding ways to put a brave face on and try to make it work. He only really shows the reality to Zagiri and Anahid (partly, not fully) and Izmirlian, a curious high society man who wants to achieve his own dream and hopes Siyon might be the key to it.
Anahid starts off slow, trying so incredibly hard to align with the rules of her own class and the expectations of her circle, but making society think your relationship is perfectly fine when it is just a relationship in name is heavy on her shoulders, alongside her love and care for Zagiri and hoping that she can do better than she did. As we go through her story in the first book she starts to find ways to bend the rules or at least find some breathing room. Her question is more of “what do YOU want? how about being selfish for once?”.
And finally Zagiri, she represents a more spoiled high class kid who goes to play in the world of the lower classes, playing but always having a “way” out of some of the bad parts of the lower class challenges. And yet, she starts noticing that maybe neither world fits her. Her own path is less intense and less explored in this book, but is asks the question, “what if you saw your privilege? what would you do with it?”
I also really enjoyed the magic system and the planar worlds, it reminded me a little of the world building Sanderson does for Mistborn, and so, yes, it is a bit different than usual but was interesting and I ketp wanting to understand more as Siyon himself kept learning of it.
I do want to warn that the pacing suffers a little so you’ll breeze through some chapters then get lost in bad pacing and then come back to better pacing. I wish it had a little bit more editing and a little bit more effort on setting the world nicely so Bezim feels more alive and real.
Still, fi you enjoy swashbuckling, magic systems that are physical and planar, interesting various ages of main characters and two female ones, alongside some queerness, this may the series for you.