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A review by ainiali
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
3.0
I don't remember where I first saw the book but I do remember searching for reviews for it on Youtube. The opinion was divided, some love it & some not. When it's shortlisted for Popular-BH Reader's Choice Award 2017, I decided to pick it up.
The story is about a new Sorcerer Royal (the leader of all magicians in England) who is also a black man, which is the first ever in the history of the nation. Despite all the people's disfavor of him, Zacharias moves along & just do his job as per his position. Now, there's one big problem in the nation. England is lacking magic that flows from FairyLand. It is Zacharia's duty to find out why and what had happened. Then, insert a foreign king came asking for help & the appearance of a witch from a faraway land to create chaos.
The first few chapters were hard for me to get thru. The writing style & words that were chosen made it difficult for me understand what I was reading. English is not my first language so I back peddled a lot at first but as I read on, it became easier.
Generally, the whole story has some kind of laid-back tone to it. Zacharia is a very calm character. He kinda accepts what other people think of him & he really does not mind the prejudice of his skin color anymore. Not until Prunella was introduced that the whole story became alive and for once Zacharia become concern about the practice of the ladies at Mrs. Daubeney's school. Adding Prunella to his life (and this story) was a great happening.
I love, love it that the author incorporated some foreign language ('mana pintu ni?' gave me a giggle fit. LOL), the minor foreign characters which become scene stealers ( Mr. Hsiang & Mak Genggang, just to name a few).
Spoiler
There was a hint that the nation could go conquering foreign lands to look for magic & capturing their great magician for His Majesty. A clever take on the reason for why British conquered a whole lot of land in the 18th century.Spoiler
I got excited when the Sultan Ahmad's child is born as a vampire, and I remember there was a sultan in Malaysian history called Raja Bersiong, who was said loves to add blood in his food, i.e a vampire. Or maybe I was looking too much into it. LOLI hope the next book is better than this or else I'll probably drop the series altogether.