Jennifer Mandula's engaging debut novel, The Geomagician, brings together fossil hunting, Victorian labor politics, and a baby pterodactyl--with a dash of romance and a generous helping of magic.
Mary Anning, poor but brilliant, has earned a reputation as a respected fossil hunter. But Mary yearns to be a geomagician: to join the all-male ranks of the Geomagical Society of London, whose members can use fossils to practice magic (and who also conduct and publish the academic research Mary loves). When Mary unearths a pterodactyl egg that hatches in her hands, she hopes the infant creature (whom she names Ajax) could be her ticket into the Society. But when Mary tells the Society about Ajax, they demand she hand him over--via their representative Henry Stanton, her former fiancé. As Mary tries to navigate Society politics and the equally baffling social codes of London, she also grows concerned about her best friend Lucy's involvement with the labor reform movement--and their increasingly dangerous tactics.
Mandula paints a striking portrait of Mary, struggling to run her shop alone and still missing the father she adored. Despite Mary's intellect, her social isolation renders her naive, especially given her complicated feelings for Henry. In London, she and Lucy enter the household of William Buckland, Mary's longtime mentor, and Mary tries to protect Ajax while fighting for entry into the Society. Meanwhile, Lucy joins a shadowy group known as the Prometheans, who agitate for fairer labor practices for working-class Britons. But their methods give Mary pause, and the friends clash over a central question: Is it better to gradually reform the system of buying and selling magic, which exploits poor people, or destroy it altogether?
Alongside Mary and Lucy's debates about labor reform, Mary and Ajax are drawn into the Society's ongoing arguments about fossils, magic, and creation--which strongly resemble the debates about evolution and creation that will be familiar to many readers. Though some geomagicians, including Buckland, want to find a way for magic and faith to coexist, the existence and use of magic pose a threat to powerful Church leaders, and Mary must tread carefully lest she be marked as a witch. As the various simmering questions come to a boil, Mary discovers some damning secrets about the Society, and she is forced to decide what--and whom--she is willing to give up in order to belong.
Packed with historical details and layered with emotion (not to mention amusing pterodactyl encounters), The Geomagician is an entertaining fantasy with big questions at its heart. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: A female fossil hunter tries to protect a baby pterodactyl while navigating tricky academic and magical politics in Jennifer Mandula's entertaining debut historical fantasy.