The Master of Heathcrest Hall
The House on Durrow Street
“Beckett’s enchantingly gothic voice is in evidence in this second in the series; [the] protagonist Ivy is as enchantingly strong as ever, with a beguiling Austen-esque personality, which really carries the novel. The backdrop of quirky characters, a fascinating magic system and the mysterious nature of the house all wrap up a delightful … novel.”
—RT Book Reviews
“
The House on Durrow Street
(A++) is one of those novels that stay with you for a long time and I plan to reread the whole series across the years.”
—Fantasy Book Critic
“I highly recommend
The House on Durrow Street
as a splendid fantasy that is both magical and very proper.”
—SFRevu
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent
“
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent
by Galen Beckett is a charming and mannered fantasy confection with a darker core of Gothic romance wrapped around a mystery. Fans of any of these will enjoy it. Readers who enjoy all these genres will find it a banquet.”
—R
OBIN
H
OBB
, author of
Dragon Haven
“
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent
is a charming and accomplished debut, sure to delight fantasy aficionados and lovers of gothic romance alike.”
—J
ACQUELINE
C
AREY
, author of
Naamah’s Blessing
“
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent
combines the sense and sensibility of Miss Austen with the sweep and romantic passion of the Miss Brontës in a fantastical feast of delights. From the moment I encountered the resourceful and charming Miss Ivoleyn Lockwell, I was eager to follow her from the fashionable streets of the city to her new employment as governess at lonely Heathcrest Hall on the windswept and rugged moorlands. In Altania, Galen Beckett has created a fascinating and engaging world where the formalities and courtesies of polite society conceal the emergence of a dark and ancient force that threatens to destabilize the kingdom and destroy everything that Ivy holds dear.”
—S
ARAH
A
SH
, author of
Flight into Darkness
“An enchanting blend of Victorian melodrama, Edwardian comedy of manners, and magic, a trip into an alternate universe in which top-hatted gentlemen dabble in magic and young women of great spirit are as beleaguered by their lack of dowry as they are by the evil villains. The characters are convincing, the plot vertiginous, and the danger bone-chilling.”
—D
ELIA
S
HERMAN
, author of
The Porcelain Dove
“I loved reading this piquant page-turner of a retro-modernist fantasy novel. But it’s more than just a rattling good time. Like its characters, it is not merely devastatingly clever, but has a heart and a soul.”
—E
LLEN
K
USHNER
, author of
The Privilege of the Sword
“Wonderful! Jane Austen meets high fantasy. Just a delightful story in a parallel world of magic and adventure.”
—B
ARB AND
J. C. H
ENDEE
, authors of the Noble Dead Saga
“Galen Beckett’s debut cleverly mixes fantasy and literary in a novel that imagines the social strictures that hemmed in Austen’s and Brontë’s heroines are the result of magical intervention. The novel’s supernatural elements and imaginary (but familiar-seeming) setting allow Beckett to examine class and economic conflicts from the outside, without resorting to polemics. The result is a work that mixes the rich pleasures of a Victorian epic with elements of the fantastic, an imaginative eye and a dry sense of humor.”
“Beckett has given us a rich world in
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent.…
I was so entranced with this strange world that I kept reading and when the story finally began to unfold it just drew me along to the final act. It’s a story of character, courage, and honor more than rip-roaring adventure. The story pulls you into the world and then much later into the action. Luckily for the reader, the characters are interesting enough in their own right to keep the pages turning.”
—SFRevu
“
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent
is the most proficiently written first novel that I’ve read since Susanna Clarke’s
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.…
Oozes with a keen wit and endearing charm.… [The] characters are superbly crafted, highlighted by sparkling dialogue and distinctive personalities.… A riveting blend of drama, romance, mystery, thrills, misdirection and fantasy … superior craftsmanship … remarkably charming, witty, and entertaining.”
—Fantasy Book Critic
“Fans of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters will be in a familiar landscape reading
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent
.”
—Kansas City Star
“The enchanting
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent
evokes memories of other pseudo-Victorian-Edwardian fantasies, but the writing and execution are vastly superior.… Galen Beckett reconfigures what could be stereotypical into an exciting and clever romp.”
—Omnivoracious
“Very, very good … This is one ride to board early.”
—
San Jose Mercury News
The Master of Heathcrest Hall
is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
A Spectra eBook Edition
Copyright © 2012 by Mark Anthony
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Spectra Books,
an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
S
PECTRA
and the portrayal of a boxed “S” are trademarks
of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Beckett, Galen
The master of Heathcrest Hall / Galen Beckett.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-53248-0
I. Title.
PS3602.E27M37 2012
813′.6—dc23 2012000361
Cover art: Phil Heffernan
v3.1
T
HE PEOPLE HUDDLED in the cave as the wind shook the branches of the trees outside.
The cave was damp and musty from disuse, for it had been a long while since they had last journeyed to it. In years past, they would dwell here during the darkest winter months, when the thick stone offered protection from the winds that swept out of the north—and from the wolves that prowled the frozen land, their fur ragged, desperate enough to brave fire and arrow in search of something to fill their shrunken bellies.
For most of the year, the people lived five days’ walk to the south of this place, in a camp by the blue sea. There they would spend the long days as they had for time out of mind, prying mussels from the rocks and spearing fish and cormorants, until they became as sleek as the otters that basked on the shore in the sun.
At least, that was how things used to be. Layka still remembered what it had been like when she was smaller. She would spend the warm evenings walking along the beach, clad only in a supple doeskin, choosing shells that might be strung on a piece of leather—saving them for the day when she was old enough to begin making herself beautiful for the young men who visited on occasion from the other camps down the shore.
But that was before everything changed.
It began one day with a violent shuddering of the ground. An awful groaning noise filled the air, and the sea pulled away from
the shore. All knew this was a sign to flee to a higher place, but even as they did so a sudden night fell over the world. It was as if a fist had closed around the burning ember of the sun, snuffing it out. The people looked up and, for the first time, saw an unfamiliar red spark smoldering among the stars. What this new object in the night sky was, no one knew—not even Nesharu, who of all the people was the oldest and wisest.