With winks to multiple genres, Sarah Gailey’s Magic for Liars shows that their talent has no trouble extending to a full-length novel.
The lines between genres are thinner than ever in terms of literature, with endless subcategories to more specifically delineate what kind of book you’re getting into. Sarah Gailey seems particularly aware of this, because their Magic for Liars lives right in the heart of those liminal spaces, and seemingly happily so.
The book’s certainly better for it, anyway.
Our protagonist is Ivy Gamble, private detective and closer to the world of magic than someone without it should really be. But when her sister’s employer, Osthorne Academy of Young Mages, calls her in to solve a murder, well, things get complicated, and they get complicated quickly.
Granted, the press materials for this book name-check Jessica Jones and The Magicians, but it’s not even quite that so much as it’s a novel that knows the conventions of what it’s playing with, and turns them on their heads to produce something different. However, this book only works because Gailey — and, in turn, Ivy, whose head we live in — are savvy about the genres themselves without getting too funny too often. It’s a tough line to walk, and it feels like Gailey walks it well.
This seems like it’s a standalone novel, at least for now, and that might very well be for the best. It’s not like Ivy couldn’t tell more stories, but this one is so self-contained that it would almost be a disservice to go back to her. She’s spent so long with all the emotions that she processes over the course of the book, after all, and any subsequent journeys might feel a touch underwhelming. Granted, the journey in this book might seem a bit overblown at first before we get to learn more about Ivy and Tabitha’s relationship (or lack thereof).
What Gailey ultimately chooses to focus on, though, is the people at the heart of the book, not any conspiracies or otherwise that may or may not exist. (You didn’t think I’d spoil it, did you?) That certainly helps Magic for Liars cross these genre boundaries with ease, and it’s a smart choice overall.
The whole book, really, is smart. The magic system isn’t as detailed as, say, your Brandon Sanderson, but Gailey puts the detail in when they need it in the story, sometimes rather explicitly. It’s a book that centers around a rather graphic death, so it’s not for the squeamish anyway, to be fair.
Simply put, though, this is a fun read for those who enjoy a knowing-without-being-obnoxious narrator and some takes on genres without, again, being particularly smarmy about it. Kudos to Sarah Gailey on this one.