Magic for Liars: A Novel

Sarah Gailey

Jun 2019 · Sold by Tor Books

About this ebook

A 2020 LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL

Sharp, mainstream fantasy meets compelling thrills of investigative noir in Magic for Liars, a fantasy debut by rising star Sarah Gailey.

Ivy Gamble was born without magic and never wanted it.

Ivy Gamble is perfectly happy with her life – or at least, she’s perfectly fine.

She doesn't in any way wish she was like Tabitha, her estranged, gifted twin sister.

Ivy Gamble is a liar.

When a gruesome murder is discovered at The Osthorne Academy of Young Mages, where her estranged twin sister teaches Theoretical Magic, reluctant detective Ivy Gamble is pulled into the world of untold power and dangerous secrets. She will have to find a murderer and reclaim her sister—without losing herself.

“An unmissable debut.”—Adrienne Celt, author of Invitation to a Bonfire

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

Magic for Liars throws off the notion that magic imbues people, institutions and settings with some kind of higher moral standard simply by virtue of its existence. The Osthorne Academy of Young Mages is no Hogwarts, rejecting the setup that everyone magical is automatically accorded a certain level of "goodness" except for the few (Slytherins) clearly delineated as evil. Author Sarah Gailey's magical teens are, first and foremost, teens. They - and their teachers - use magic as a tool. Sometimes for good, sometimes for ill, sometimes for the merely mundane. Locker graffiti, passing notes, keeping students away from the staff coffeepot...much to the chagrin of non-magical Ivy, who believes magical people should afford a weightier gravitas to their power. Against the backdrop of a gruesome murder, Magic for Liars forces readers to consider that magic is not a force for good - it's just a force, and whether it results in good, evil, or neutral actions is entirely dependent on the person wielding it.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for that, Bookish First! This book was not at all what I had built up in my head. The back of the books says MURDER, MYSTERY, MADNESS, MAGIC. So in my head I had this wild ride of a book. And it really wasn't and I'm not mad at that at all, shockingly enough. Ivy Gamble is a PI and she gets hired by a school to solve a murder. The problem is that she's never solved a murder (Her job is more cheating spouses and insurance scams). It's a high school for young mages. And it's where her estranged twin sister teaches. What caught me off guard was how much in Ivy's head I would be. She lives in her head a lot and I can really relate to that. Her sister is magic and she is not and that, along with some family trauma, ripped them apart at a young age and they never really mended the rift. She sees herself as less than..almost all the time. When in reality she's not bad at her job. Since Ivy and her sister Tabitha grew apart in their teens (with Tabitha going away to a magic high school), Ivy wanted to know nothing about magic. So she had no idea what to expect when she arrived at the school. And it wasn't at all what she expected and at times it seemed to make her angry. While there she also built up this double vision...The Now Ivy and the Could Have Been Ivy. The If I Had Magic Too Ivy. This Ivy Is Worth It Ivy. She really did sell herself short. The author also did a great job with the rest of the characters. Ivy is the center of the story but that doesn't mean the other characters were lacking. Not at all. This was a great debut. I am definitely going to keep a lookout for this author.

Magical Murder-A Must Read!!! (Actual Rating: 4.5) I read Magic For Liars in one sitting---I couldn't put it down! Halfway through my power went out. No problem. I pulled out my mom's old vanilla spice candles and I finished this book by candlelight! Ivy Gamble is a Private Investigator who lives a normal, boring, (maybe a little lonely) life until she is hired to investigate a murder at the school where her sister works. 'The Osthorne Academy of Young Mages'. Not only does her distinctly un-magical self now have to deal with a very-magical case, but she also needs to navigate a reunion with her sister whom she hasn't spoken to in years. This book could have easily fallen into the same rut that so many books about magic schools do nowadays. Often they can become 'counterfeit Harry Potters' but this book didn't. However, neither did it ignore the influence the Boy-Who-Lived would have had on the students either. In the first chapter, it talks about how during the welcome back dinner students would joke about house-elves and pumpkin juice. But this linoleum-floored, blue-lockered magic school is very clearly not Hogwarts. A quote from Marrion Torres, the headmaster at Osthorne, sums the school up best. "At the end of the day, we're just a high school. (...) That means gum, graffiti, cell phones, sex-ed, stupid pranks, students smoking weed behind the bleachers." A refreshing and realistic change. I do wish we'd been able to meet more of the staff and students, but the characters we did have were fleshed out and amazing. Sarah Gailey also does a great job in making the reader doubt the accuracy of their guesses about who the murderer is. I must have gone back and forth half a dozen times! Although this is not a Young Adult book, I think readers of YA would enjoy this book as well as older audiences. I loved this book. I loved the characters, I loved the school, I loved the plot. The only problem I have is that I wish there was more. Thanks to Bookishfirst for this copy of Magic for Liars in exch ange for an honest review!!!

About the author

Hugo Award-winning and bestselling author Sarah Gailey is the author of the novels The Echo Wife and Magic for Liars.Their nonfiction has been published by Mashable and The Boston Globe, and they won a Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. Their fiction credits also include Vice and The Atlantic. Their debut novella, River of Teeth, was a 2018 finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.