Review: Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Genre: Fantasy
Series: Sorcerer Royal #1
Pages: 371
Copyright: 2015
Publisher: Ace
Buy: Amazon

Summary: from Good Reads
Magic and mayhem collide with the British elite in this whimsical and sparkling debut.

At his wit’s end, Zacharias Wythe, freed slave, eminently proficient magician, and Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers—one of the most respected organizations throughout all of Britain—ventures to the border of Fairyland to discover why England’s magical stocks are drying up.

But when his adventure brings him in contact with a most unusual comrade, a woman with immense power and an unfathomable gift, he sets on a path which will alter the nature of sorcery in all of Britain—and the world at large…

Feelings: 
Sorcerer to the Crown is Zen Cho's first novel. I picked it randomly off the adult new fiction shelves at the library. When I picked it, I had no expectations. However, before I read it, I saw that some people were speculating it might be nominated for a Nebula Award. That lead me to expect this to be an amazing book. It was a good book but the story didn't impress me. I enjoyed the story a lot, but Prunella, one of the narrators, got on my nerves and seemed overly childish to me. Zacharias, the Sorcerer Royal, the other main character was more appealing to me. He was older than Prunella and could be awkward at times but his character seemed more genuine to me.

The plot of the novel seemed like that of a young adult novel, which made me wonder if it was just the age of the characters that categorized it as an adult books or if there was something else that separated it from young adult. The vocabulary was more sophisticated than most young adult novels, and maybe that is why. One of the characters, Prunella was the age of many young adult characters, 18 years old, and the other character Zacharias was 24, which is older than most major characters in young adult novels. I would be interested to know how the decision was made to place this with adult novels.

Because of my expectations and the fact that this felt like a young adult novel, I didn't really feel like this novel stood up. It was good -- I didn't want to put it down while I was reading it -- just not as good as I had hoped it would be. What disappointing me most about the book was the ending, which also really pushed this into the young adult category for me. If the novel had ended a chapter earlier I think I would have been more satisfied. The last chapter seemed a little silly to me.

Overall, I really enjoyed the novel, and I recommend it. As Zen Cho matures as a writer, I will be interested to see where her writing goes. I greatly enjoy good fantasy and this was almost there.