Sorcerer to the Crown

This is a pleasant, diverting, and competently written story suitable for passing the time on a journey. It's compared by some to [b:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 14201 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1357027589l/14201.SY75.jpg 3921305], but this book is much shorter, lighter, and easier to read. If you like, you could consider it as the children's version of [b:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 14201 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1357027589l/14201.SY75.jpg 3921305].The story is set in the Napoleonic era, and establishes that English society was both patriarchal and racist (which of course it was). It introduces a hero who is a young-adult black-African orphan, and a heroine who is a young-adult half-Indian orphan: both severely disadvantaged in English society, you'd think. However, the hero is magically talented, and the heroine turns out to be magically super-talented, so basically the world is their oyster and this is a transparent wish-fulfillment fantasy.In order to have a story at all, of course they encounter some opposition and difficulties, but all opposition and difficulties are illusory, because in a world of magic the author can overcome all such problems with a suitable spell whenever she chooses.This is an occupational hazard in writing magical fantasies. If the author wants to make readers believe that difficulties are real, she has to work at persuading us that magic has definite rules and limitations, and cannot be deployed at whim to defeat anyone or anything that gets in the way. In this story, it's vaguely suggested that magic may have some rules and limitations, but we don't know what they are, and it's not very convincing.I found the book pleasant and readable, but unsatisfying. Will I ever read it again? I don't know; at the moment I feel that once is enough.