A door in the dark

Review by Booklist Review

A poor "welfare wizard" desperately trying to make a name for herself, Ren Monroe is brilliant. Driven by a need to understand magic, as well as to make and perfect new spells, she should be sought after by the wealthy houses of the continent. Instead, she finds herself dumped by her paladin boyfriend and snubbed by one of the high houses. When the university's traveling magic goes awry, killing one of the house heirs, Ren is faced with friends and foes alike who expect her to explain the death, and possibly save them from whatever ill fate awaits them in the Dires--the deep, unfriendly forest in the wilds of the continent. Reintgen, most recently known for the Nyxia trilogy and the Ashlords duo, excels at world building: the magic system, the money-for-magic credits ("ockleys," here), and the travel by magical waxway here is intriguing. A fitting successor for readers who have just finished Naomi Novik's The Golden Enclaves (2022) and are ravenous for more dark academia.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Six teenage wizards are stranded in the wilderness after a spell goes awry in this pulse-pounding series launch from Reintgen (the Ashlords duology). Balmerick University scholarship student Ren Monroe may be talented, but she lacks the connections necessary to secure employment at one of the wealthy, powerful political houses in the hierarchical city of Kathor. That is, until disaster strikes. Ren and five classmates--including two house heirs--are traveling via portal when something misfires and drops them in the Dires, a distant, desolate place where dragons once dwelled and monsters still roam. One person mysteriously dies in transit, inspiring distrust among the survivors, but since Kathor is too far for transport via sorcery, the group must join forces to return on foot. Though the long, dangerous trek is further complicated by limited resources, Ren determines it a serendipitous opportunity to impress the heirs and obtain placement in one of their houses--provided that they all live. Reintgen combines inventive worldbuilding, intricate plotting, and a strongly developed, racially diverse cast to craft a twisty tale of classism, redemption, and revenge. Tense prose and escalating environmental, magical, and social conflicts foster constant fear for the characters' fates. Ages 14--up. Agent: Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary. (Mar.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 9 Up--Magic comes out of the ground, from land once inhabited by dragons. People travel on waxways, portalling from one location to another via concentration and candles. Those in the lower city strive to raise their status, hoping to improve their lives and their monthly allotment of magic. But protagonist Ren's ambition is darker and stronger than most. She seeks revenge for her father's murder at the hands of one man at the top of society. She attends Balmerick, the magic school, becoming the perfect student in order to gain the best employment upon graduation. But on a waxways trip home with fellow students, something goes horribly wrong, sending all of them far into the Dires, menacing wilderness days outside of the city. One of them is already gruesomely dead upon arrival, and now they are being hunted. Fleeing for safety across treacherous slopes with scant supplies and dwindling magic, Ren determines her best path not only back home but to impress her companions to secure her future. The only problem? One of these students is a killer. Part locked-room mystery, part glorious new fantasy world, Reintgen's latest novel is filled with unexpected friendships, surprising moments of comedy, deadly adventure, and a cleverly explained magical world. An explosive ending with a major plot twist in the final paragraphs will have readers clamoring for the sequel the moment they close the cover on the first. VERDICT A must purchase for libraries serving teens.--Kristen Rademacher

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

This dark fantasy duology opener has a magic school, a death, and five students who find themselves stranded in the wilderness. Ren Monroe is a promising student wizard at Balmerick, a private school in the city of Kathor. Along with her best friend, Timmons, Ren is one of the few welfare students attending on a scholarship, and despite being one of the most accomplished people at the school, finding a placement in one of the top houses is proving difficult and is a hurdle in the way of the secret mission Ren has set out to accomplish. When a portal spell goes awry and Ren, Timmons, and four other students from different walks of life are thrown together into the Dires, an uncharted land where the last dragons lived, one of them ends up dead and the rest need to learn to work together to make their way back home before they succumb to the harsh environment or the terrifying revenant following them. This may well be the chance Ren was looking for to prove her worth. Placing elements of a locked-room mystery and an original magic system within the familiar trappings of a school for magic, this is a no-holds-barred tale of revenge, atonement, and the pursuit of justice set in a world diverse in skin color and social classes. Ren is a protagonist for the ages: equal parts smart, calculating, and ruthless, forming a lethal package as an avenging angel. Truly fantastic. (Fantasy. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Chapter 1 1 Wind prowled wolflike through the waiting crowd, sinking its teeth into exposed necks and bare ankles. Ren kept her hood up and her eyes down. Still, it found every threadbare hole and feasted. There was an unspoken camaraderie to how everyone in line huddled closer together as it howled. On the first day of every month, Ren left her dormitory on Balmerick's campus and traveled down to wait in line in the Lower Quarter. She knew the place by memory now. The patterns on the stone walkway. How decades of passing boots had rounded its edges. The rows of windows that were always boarded shut. Even the other people who waited in line with her, assigned to this particular magic-house. Sunlight might have warded off the chill, but there wasn't sunlight in this section of the Lower Quarter. Not at this hour. Not in her lifetime. Ren couldn't resist looking up. The Heights hovered magically overhead. When she was a child, it had been a marvel to her. An awe that only grew when she studied the actual magical theories involved. It was no small task for the Proctor family to create an entire neighborhood of glinting buildings in the clouds. Her favorite part had been the relocation of Balmerick University. The building's foundations had proven rather tricky. Decades of residual magic had made the walls more or less sentient. It turned out they liked where they'd settled down in the Lower Quarter. A team of wizards had used veracity alteration spells to convince each individual rock that the sky was actually the earth. Ren liked to imagine them spending hours underground, lying to the stones. "Eyes ahead, dear." Ren startled. She'd allowed a gap to form in the line. Two strides brought her back into position. She glanced at the woman who'd spoken, an apology ready, before recognizing her. "Aunt Sloan." Not her real aunt. Her mother was an only child, just as Ren was an only child. But every woman who lived in their building was an aunt. Every man an uncle. The other kids were all cousins, until they were old enough to start flirting and figuring out where they could sneak kisses without being seen. Aunt Sloan lived up on the third floor. She worked on the wharf. "Little Monroe," she said. "How's your mother?" "Doing well. Strong and happy and willful." Sloan laughed. "Of course. I hate that our shifts changed. It's been too long since she and I sat down to play a few hands of barons together. About four years now. Agnes was always such a good time, too. It's a shame she's all alone these days." Barons was a rotating card game that Ren's mother loved. It involved seven suits, and the winner was usually the one who got away with the most cheating. Ren quietly took note of the other implications hidden beneath Aunt Sloan's words. She kept her tone neutral, polite. "I will tell her you said hello." Sloan nodded. "It's kind of you to stand in line for her." Her aunt gestured to the bracelet hanging on Ren's wrist. It was a memorable piece. A little loop of dragon-forged iron. Smoke black except for the rivulets of flickering fire that boiled in the metal's depths. Ren's father had bought it for her mother as a wedding gift. It was for the woman, he'd said, who bent to the will of no one. And a nod to the fire she brought out in him. Sloan kept prattling on. "... my boys. Too busy to stand in for me. Both of them landed jobs in Peckering's workshop. Making ends meet. You know how it all goes, dear. Or you did. Before you went off to live in the clouds and do your... studies." There it was. The neighborhood's favorite slice of gossip. Ren knew the others always wondered how she'd gotten into a private school like Balmerick. What trick did the Monroes have up their sleeves? They always praised the achievement to her face, but she knew exactly what they said behind her and her mother's backs. Reaching for the stars, isn't she? Bound to come back empty-handed. The line moved. Ren used it as an excuse to drop the conversation. She kept her eyes forward and waited patiently until it was her turn. A pair of doors were propped open. The building to which they belonged was hunched and industrious, singular in its purpose. A government official sat at a table. His hair was slicked back, eyes narrowed in meticulous calculation. He offered the barest of nods when Ren stepped forward. "Vessel?" "I have two that need to be refilled, sir. One is mine. One belongs to my mother." She slid off her mother's bracelet and set it on the table. Next she reached for the wand hanging from the loop on her belt. Her own was shaped like a horseshoe. Both ends curved to sharpened points, but the central section offered a crude handle for her grip. She preferred this style to the aim-and-point wands. She'd found it far easier to control the range of her spells. The government accountant briefly appraised both items. "Listed under Agnes Monroe and Ren Monroe." He ran a finger down the list of names. She saw him pause and knew the question he'd ask before his lips even moved. "And what about Roland Monroe?" The name shivered down her spine the way it always did when a stranger spoke it so casually. Ren saw a brief vision of his body, bent in all the wrong ways. Every time she came to collect her monthly allotment, they would say his name before tracing the line across to see the explanation for his absence. Ren spoke the word before the man could. The smallest of victories. "Deceased." He tapped the notation in front of him and nodded. They never showed sympathy. Never whispered a condolence. It was just a status that determined how the rest of the transaction should go. This particular arbiter didn't even bother to make eye contact. "Very well. I've got you listed for an allowance of one hundred ockleys per vessel. The law requires I inform you that another magical stipend will be avail--" Ren cleared her throat. "I've got coin to add more. If that's okay?" "How much?" "Just twenty mids. I earned a few tips this week." He hunched back over his list to make another notation. Ren had learned never to add too much. A big down payment could earn unwanted attention. Sometimes the government would investigate. Cut off your welfare entirely. She couldn't afford for that to happen. "Twenty mids convert to about two hundred more ockleys." If you want to be precise, it's 201.32. But Ren only nodded at the approximation. An ockley was the exact amount of magic it took to use a single-step spell. Named for Reverend Ockley, who Ren knew had come up with the original and very incorrect equation. His math had been honed by far cleverer wizards, but he was the one in the history books. Sometimes, being first was all that mattered. Ren looked up and realized the accountant was staring at her. He repeated himself. "Which item do you want them added to?" "The bracelet," she answered. "My mother could use the extra spells." A well-worn lie. It fit like an old shoe at this point. Her mother hadn't used any of their magical allowance in years. The man didn't ask any questions, though. He simply turned and handed the two vessels to a hired runner. The young girl slipped inside the warehouse through an interior door. Ren caught a glimpse of the factory-like rows. Discolored gases churned in the enclosed space. It was still strange to think the city's entire magical supply came from underground. Ren knew the histories. She'd memorized all the dates for her exams back in undergrad. She could recite the year that her people--the Delveans--first landed on this continent. She knew the name of the woman who'd cast the first recorded spell in their people's history, and the group of wizards who'd invented the conversion process that refined raw magic into a form that could be dispensed to the masses. Like every other primary school student, she'd memorized the names of the four ships that had sailed up the eastern seaboard to land in what would one day become Kathor. She'd also read through all the modern theories and conspiracies about magic refineries. One author claimed there was infinite magic underneath their city and that the five wealthiest houses had created a scarcity model to keep the rest of the population underfoot. Another claimed that the city's supply was nearly depleted, and when it ran out, society would completely collapse. After spending time with the scions and heirs at Balmerick, Ren suspected the former was far more likely to be true. As the interior door shut with a thump, Ren watched the girl vanish with the two most valuable items she possessed. She wondered how the accountant--who'd barely even looked at her--might react if he knew all the spellwork written into the veins of each of those vessels. All the time she'd spent hammering perfection into her stances and her enunciations. All he sees is another welfare wizard. "You can step to the side. She'll return shortly." Ren complied. She felt an itch at the back of her neck. A whisper of an echo of a curse. This was where she always stood as she waited for her items. She knew that the alley over her right shoulder ran straight and narrow, down to the place where her life had changed forever. Every time she stood here, she tried to resist looking. And every time she failed. As Aunt Sloan stepped up to speak with the accountant, Ren looked down that arrow of an alleyway. It pointed to the distant canal bridge. Unfinished back then, it was the place where her father had turned to wave back at her. Ren's eyes found the wooden bench where she'd sat down to wait for him. Sometimes she couldn't believe it was still there. Like a relic that she'd summoned from her own memories. And then she imagined hearing the sound of the earth grinding beneath their feet as it had that day. The way her father had looked back one final time before he fell. Her entire life, changed in less than a breath. "Your things?" The girl was back, standing with both vessels held out. Ren liked to imagine she saw a new glow in them, but the truth was they looked exactly the same. She accepted both vessels, and the runner slipped back to her position behind the table. Ren glanced at the line one more time. Everyone was waiting. She knew they'd refill their vessels and use spells that unwound the knots in their backs. Spells that added strength to get them through another grueling day. Aunt Sloan liked to spice her soups with a little magic. Others entertained grandchildren with clever charms. She almost envied the thought. Using magic to touch up their days. Meanwhile, she would spend the next few weeks trying to create entirely new spells with her meager allotment. Doing her best to impress people who seemed to find nothing so impressive as their own lives. Ren took a final look, tucked her wand into a waiting belt loop, and started to walk. Excerpted from A Door in the Dark by Scott Reintgen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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