A DISTANT MAGIC - Mary Jo Putney
A Novel of the Guardians, Book 3
Del Ray
ISBN: 978-0-345-47692-0
May 2008
Romantic Fantasy

Malta, 1733; London and Elsewhere, 1752 and Otherwhen

Once upon a time, a street urchin on the island of Malta tried to pick the wrong pocket. His prey was no easy victim; he was a powerful Scottish mage who recognized the innate magic in the boy and offered to raise him with his own son and daughter. He also promised the boy he'd be taught how to develop and control his power. But the ship taking James Macrae of Dunrath and the orphaned Nicolai Gregorio to Britain was attacked by Barbary pirates. The battle was fierce and, from Nicolai's point of view, Macrae did nothing to save him from capture. Only the hatred and thirst for vengeance nursed over his years of slavery kept Nicolai alive and helped him to escape. His two purposes in life now are to free as many slaves as possible and wreak havoc on Macrae and his children. He has been very successful with the first goal. His opportunity for the latter comes to him sooner than expected -- in Marseilles.

There is a little bit of magic in everyone -- weak in most, strong in some, and it runs in families. Centuries ago, many of the most powerful families in Europe formed a society of Guardians to ensure magic is used to benefit, not harm, mankind. The Macraes of Dunrath are a Guardian family whose members are powerful weather mages (A Macrae ancestor and his mate called up the storm that defeated the Spanish Armada.). Well, James's son Duncan, at least, carries on in his father's footsteps. Everyone tells his daughter Jean she has power but, if so, it's a chancy thing that doesn't always work. Her talents seem to be domestic ones that fall more in the category of teaching and nurturing. The love of Jean's life fell fighting for Scotland at Culloden and, though she's expected to marry into a Guardian family, she has no plans to marry at all. She's happy enough to be going to Marseilles to attend two weddings. As Jean's well-wishers see her and her maid off at the London docks, Lady Bethany Fox, leader of the British Guardian Council, reminds Jean that adventures may fall at any time. Jean will later wonder if that was a casual remark or true prophecy. Jean's adventures begin while shopping in Marseilles when Nicolai captures her and takes her aboard his ship.

Running parallel with Nicolai and Jean's storyline is that of Adia, a young African girl stolen from her village, marched to the sea, transported in a slave ship to Jamaica and eventually to the Carolina Colony in America. Adia and her family escape to London after the American Revolution. Though Adia's tale unfolds years later than Jean and Nicolai's, they are going to meet. African magic is older than European and different in its base. European magic is based on the mind and is almost a parascience, while African magic is more mystic (These are my words, not the author's. I hope I got it right.) and relies heavily on communion with the ancestors. African priests (male and female) are able to make use of other worlds to move in time. Nicolai has magic from his African grandmother, but it's mainly self-taught and he has lots more to learn.

By the time Adia joins Jean and Nicolai, the two have reached an accommodation of sorts, not least because of their burgeoning mutual admiration. With Adia's assistance and help from several others, the two learn better how to summon and control their powers. Eventually, the combination of African and European magics and the male and female forces will have an important effect on the course of history. It won't be as dramatic as calling up the wind to save England from invasion, but it will be the start of saving thousands (millions?) from the terrible yoke that is slavery.

I would hope that everyone is aware of the horrors committed wherever and whenever slavery flourishes, but Ms. Putney reminds us in a moving way through characters who lived (or died) through such captivity. Americans are familiar with our own history, but few, perhaps, know how or when England first outlawed the slave trade, and eventually slavery itself. I doubt even British history books tell of the two time travelers who guarded the budding abolition movement.

If you don't count The Alchemical Marriage, Ms. Putney's novella in IRRESISTIBLE FORCES (2/04) that precedes the later novels by a century and a half or so, A DISTANT MAGIC is the third book in The Guardians series. While as enchantingly romantic as the others, it teaches us that magic can happen when an idea catches fire in the hearts and minds of ordinary people -- that the will of the people is a powerful force for good or evil. Adia and other Africans of power are important in themselves and further the plot, and Guardians from A KISS OF FATE and STOLEN MAGIC (7/04 & 6/05 in paperback) are revisited.

A DISTANT MAGIC is a one-of-a-kind reading experience you don't want to miss. In it, history comes alive, good, decent people make their world better, and a gifted pair, Jean and Nicolai, discover love makes its own magic.

Jane Bowers