Every now and then we start a series, love it, but for whatever reason it slips through our notice. Morrigan Crow was like this.
We reviewed the first book two Decembers ago, in Holiday Picks as a New Series Starter. So I felt it appropriate to continue the series this holiday season.
After Morrigan makes it into the Wundrous Society, with only a few key Elders and supporters knowing she's the first Wundersmith in decades, she prepares to go to "school" at Wunsoc, which segregates students into magical and non-magical courses. Morrigan, who can't openly say she's a Wundersmith, is placed into one non-magical class -- the history of Wundersmiths, as told by a Wunimal professor who has a very dim view of Wundersmiths and all they've ever done, throughout all of history.
It's all very depressing, especially when the other winners of the trials -- Cadence, who only Morrigan can seem to remember, enthusiastic Hawthorne, Anah, Francis, Mahir, Thaddea, Archan and Lambeth (an oracle) -- all talk about their awesome classes on the Home Train to and from school.
Then the school's Magnificat (kitten) goes missing. Added to an angel, who's missing from the beginning of the story, and the little brother of a Wunsoc student, and you know something nefarious is afoot.
Morrigan gets one more class added to her schedule, a Nevermoor navigation course with a really nice, helpful professor, and she rushes head-long into the curriculum. She pushes through a tricky alley to end up at the Ghastly Market, a ghoulish, revolving location where magical people, Wunimals and animals (the Magnificat) are captured, sold to the highest bidders and drained of their knacks by their new owners.
It's up to Morrigan to figure out what's going on, when her Wundersmith professor is abducted and her mentor's angel friend disappears. More importantly, she has to figure out who set events in motion and why the Wunder is gathering around her in explosive amounts.
Hint: Expect her nemesis from the first book, Ezra Squall, the only other living Wundersmith, to have a hand in this, somehow, even if it does spiral a bit out of his control.
This was a fun, quick read and extension of the first book!
