Island Books

Let’s continue our moody fall reads and close out the month with Justina Ireland’s new alt-historical YA fantasy, Rust in the Root.

In 1937 America is still deep in the Depression, but Laura Ann Langston’s dream is to get her mages license so she can ravel (create something from the potential energy of living things) incredible confections and become a world-renowned baker. This is an unlikely dream given the prejudice against people of color and against those who use the mystical arts in any form. Driven by desperation, dwindling finances and doors shut at every turn, Laura applies to apprentice with the Bureau of the Arcane’s Colored Auxiliary and is reluctantly brought on board by the Skylark, a powerful female mage. The Bureau is in a delicate situation, trying to repair deteriorating Resonators (stop-gap measures put in to keep the machines fueling industry working after a catastrophic energy disruption) while teams of agents go missing in the expanding Ohio Blight. Laura is thrown into the deep-end, going with Skylark as she heads the latest expedition. What they find as they make their way into the Blight defies everything history has recorded about the mystical arts, Mechomancy (technology of the day), and the energy that powers them both.

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Becca gets the credit for inspiring me to pick up this book and although I’ve been hand selling it for weeks, when we’ve had copies to sell that is, I’ve been waiting for it to be more fall-like before featuring it on our blog. It turns out I wasn’t the only one completely enchanted by this cozy magical romance, as both the publisher and our distributor keep running out. But I can’t wait any longer. We have two copies on hand, fall has officially started and we’ll be restocked by mid-October.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches is a contemporary romance with a hefty dose of magic. In this novel, witches exist in secret alongside the rest of us, staying isolated from each other, even in their childhood, in order protect their secrecy and to avoid exposure. But when Mika Moon answers an advertisement out of curiosity for Witch Wanted, she finds herself in an eclectic household in Norfolk that includes one aging former Shakespearean actor, his husband the groundskeeper, a housekeeper, a grumpily sexy librarian and, oh yes, three young witches. 

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Here are the events we have coming up at Island Books!

Thursday, September 22nd at 6:30pm

Mike Trigg, author of Bit Flip in conversation with Margaret O’Mara

Join us Thursday, September 22 at 6:30pm to celebrate Mike Trigg’s debut novel Bit Flip. Mike will be discussing his book with local author and Silicon Valley expert Margaret O'Mara. Combining the corporate intrigue of Joseph Finder, the satirical cultural critique of Dave Eggers, and the domestic drama of Laura Dave, Bit Flip is a fast-paced contemporary thriller that delivers an authentic insider’s view of the corrupting influences of greed, entitlement, and vanity in technology start-ups.

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