The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry: Spoiler Free Review

The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry is an interconnected stand alone set in the same world as author C.M. Waggoner’s earlier novel, Unnatural Magic.

Right off the bat, I loved the way that the chapter titles described, in a roundabout and entertaining way, what was going to happen in the chapter.

There was so much voice and style which flowed through the entire novel. Delly speaks mostly in what she refers to as “alley chat” throughout the book. This is a sort of slang used the lower socioeconomic classes in the city of Leiscourt.

For the first chapter or two, I did find the alley chat style of narration from Delly to be really hard to get into. I picked up the book a couple of times and couldn’t initially get into it. This is definitely something that’s specific to me as a reader because I’ve experienced this same thing before with other books that were written with a similar kind of style, so I definitely wouldn’t call that a drawback of the book itself.

Once I got into the book I really started to appreciate how creative the slang was. It really did a lot to characterize Delly and the other people from her social class, as well as doing a lot for the worldbuilding. One simple example that stood out to me was how many phrases from the slang often compared people to animals, especially the people of lower socioeconomic class.

Still, she hoofed it down to Crane Street to check on the old bird’s last known address—she wasn’t there, no surprise—and then took a moment to buy a cup of coffee and a withered sandwich from a dingy coffee shop, sit on a bench in a park that was more a sanitarium for wan crabgrass, and have a bit of a restful luncheon.

Thus refreshed (or close enough to it), she rose back up onto her trotters and started to look for her mam again.

I really enjoyed all the little mentions, hints, and easter eggs of the characters and locations from Unnatural Magic.

The romance was a little closer to insta-love, or insta-attraction at least, than the romance in the other book was. I didn’t mind that and I think it was in character, especially for Delly. I do wish that the book had dual POVs like Unnatural Magic but I think that the book stands up well exactly as it is. I really enjoyed the socially acceptable sapphic romance in the vaguely industrial revolution era setting.

There were some really interesting side characters who added to the world building, and one of my favorite animal companions of all time—Buttons, the undead mouse.

C.M. Waggoner is definitely an auto-buy author for me. This is my second five star read from this author and I can’t wait to see what she comes out with next!