Regency Romance with added magic is now a popular sub-genre of Fantasy Fiction but such books are not all the same. As a contrast to last month’s choice of the charming and funny Teacup Magic novellas, I’m now recommending the first in Canadian author, Olivia Atwater’s dark and distinctive Regency Faerie Tales series. Half a Soul was first published in 2020. It is available as an ebook and will be back in print as a paperback in June 2022. The two books which complete the trilogy are Ten Thousand Stitches (2020) and Longshadow (2021).

In the prologue to Half a Soul, the sinister faerie Lord Hollowvale attempts to abduct a young orphan called Theodora (Dora) Ettings. She is saved by her cousin, Vanessa, who drives the faerie off by stabbing him with a pair of iron scissors. From that day onwards, the once lively and adventurous Dora is a changed girl. She does not seem able to feel or understand most human emotions, though part of her knows that she is not reacting to people and events in the normal way. The one strong bond she has is with Vanessa but the two girls grow up with Dora in the unenviable position of poor relation.

When beautiful Vanessa reaches the age of eighteen, her mother, Lady Lockheed, decides to take her to London for the Season so that she can find a suitable husband. Vanessa, who hopes to find a cure for Dora’s condition in London, insists that she won’t go without her cousin. Lady Lockheed fears that Dora’s peculiarities – her eyes are different colours, she wears iron scissors around her neck, and she can’t make polite conversation – will put suitors off but she reluctantly agrees. The three women go to stay with a countess in her grand London townhouse. Vanessa is taken to shop for new clothes and invited to High Society events but Dora is ignored and neglected by the older women.

Left to explore London alone, Dora wanders into a shop which sells magical objects and discovers that she has a talent for scrying in mirrors. She also meets two young men in the shop – Elias Wilder, England’s formidable Lord Sorcier and his best friend, Dr Albert Lowe. Elias is very rude to Dora, as he generally is to anyone who is wealthy or aristocratic, but she fails to take offence. By way of apology for his friend’s behaviour, Albert invites Dora and her cousin to a ball being held by his mother, Lady Carroway. This invitation delights Lady Lockheed, who knows that the Carroways have several eligible sons. She and the countess encourage Dora to spend time with the Carroways in the hope that this will allow Vanessa to catch the eldest son. Lady Carroway had feared that no lady would ever marry Albert because he has an artificial arm (created by the Lord Sorcier) so she is willing to overlook the fact that Dora is faerie-cursed.

Dora, and a chaperone who has orders to look the other way, are sent to assist Albert with his charitable work in the Cleveland Street Workhouse `a place of last resort for the poor and injured and indigent’. Dora is shocked by the dreadful conditions she finds there and by the cruelty of the overseer but she and her chaperone do their best to help the sick and dying. The plight of a young girl who is the latest victim of a mysterious form of sleeping sickness is particularly disturbing. Lord Elias is increasingly interested in Dora and her curse but they both agree that the search for a cure for the Sleeping Plague must take priority. It is a search which will take them into the dangerous beauty of the Faerie Realm where Dora must confront her worst enemy and her sundered self.

This book begins with two young women entering the `marriage market’ that is the London Season and, after various complications and misunderstandings, ends with several weddings. So far, so standard, but what happens in the middle of the story is very different in tone from most Regency Romances. I fear that many Fantasy readers, especially those of the male persuasion, dismiss the whole Regency Romance with Magic sub-genre as beneath their notice, even though one of the most entertaining examples – Newt’s Emerald – is written by a man (the versatile Garth Nix). I’d urge everyone to give Half a Soul a chance because it is a powerful and challenging read.

The plot contains a Cinderella story but a much tougher one than usual. Dora’s own mother sold her to a heartless faerie Lord and she is subjected to both physical and psychological cruelty by her aunt. Atwater has embellished a genuine folk-tradition of regarding people who were mentally different as `fairy-touched’. Today we would probably say that someone like Dora was on the Autism Spectrum, though this label may not be any more helpful than the older one. Calm and detached Dora makes a touching heroine because she thinks of herself as someone who cannot know love and will always be an outsider. She frequently says or does things which polite society considers wrong because she cannot feel the normal range of emotions expected of a well-bred young woman. In the course of the story it becomes apparent that Dora does have a strong sense of right and wrong and that she can empathise with people who are worse off than herself. She begins to experience what she calls long-tailed emotions, such as righteous anger, drawing on that very deep well of misery that lingered inside her.

Inspite of her condition, Dora is able to fall in love, so Half a Soul is a Regency Romance but one that subverts some of the cliches of the genre. Dora foils the marital plans of the older women by being scrupulously honest at all times. It is common for the hero to be rude and seem obnoxious to the heroine at their first meeting but the Lord Sorcier’s attitude towards innocent Dora is no laughing matter. His words to her are both crude and cruel. A vision in her mirror of the terror and agony that Elias underwent as a warrior-sorcerer during the Napoleonic Wars, helps Dora to understand his apparently unreasonable behaviour. Wounded war heroes are quite common in Regency Romance but this one is permanently traumatised and angry that no-one in England talks about the extreme brutality of the conflict. Elias is also in a state of fury at the way that most of the rich and powerful ignore the sufferings of the poor. He needs the steadying influence of someone like Dora to stop him breaking his heart over the state of society. Naturally, Elias thinks balls are a frivolous extravagence but Atwater does allow her untypical couple one truly romantic dance, lit by faerie lights, during which Dora experiences happiness for the first time.

Some writers of Regency Romances have portrayed the grim reality of the famous battles of the Napoleonic Wars, as in Georgette Heyer’s An Infamous Army, and others, like G.L. Robinson, have made social issues such a child labour or the lack of education for girls a central part of their plots. However, no other writer seems to burn with anger at the dark side of Regency society in the way that Atwater does. During the harrowing Workhouse scenes I think most readers will come to share Dora’s distress and Elias’ rage. It is shocking to think that this punitive treatment of the poor and unfortunate continued into the 20th century. Dora learns that much of what humans do to each other can be worse than the legendary heartlessness of the faeries. The fact that Lord Hollowvale is trying to imitate the behaviour of an English gentleman only makes his realm more of a nightmare.

In Ten Thousand Stitches, Atwater uses another standard plot element from Regency Romance – a family of no longer very well-off gentlefolk living in the countryside – but tells the story from the point of view of their overworked and underpaid servants. In Longshadow it is a pleasure to meet Dora again as she struggles to be a good mother to two very unusual adopted children. With some books, you feel that the author is a kindred spirit and that you would get on well if you met them. With Half a Soul, I feel that I should argue with the author about almost everything but they would be very stimulating arguments. So if the idea of magical Regency Romance with a fiery soul appeals to you, do try Atwater’s work. Until next month….

Geraldine Harris Pinch