Anya Winter is a hedge witch who works at a magical university, teaching the textile arts. Hedge witches don’t get nearly the same respect as proper (read: wealthy) wizards, but Anya believes in the work she’s doing and loves her predictable life — until a princess shows up at her doorstep needing help to hide a body. In short order, Anya realizes that her school’s under attack (perhaps from within!), and she’s the only person who can (maybe) save it, with the help of an irritatingly handsome engineer.

Oh, Arcanos Unraveled was exactly what I was in the mood for: A good and sweet fantasy adventure novel about good people striving against evil forces much greater than them — and winning. (I guess you could call that a spoiler, but I feel like I tipped my hand w/r/t things ending well when I called it an absolute doll of a book. Hopefully we’re good here? I don’t understand spoilers.) If you’ve been here for a while, you’ll know that I’m a fan of interesting magic systems, and I loved what Gjevre was doing here with Anya’s knitting magic. It’s magic, but it’s also very knitting.

Besides being an adventure, Arcanos Unraveled is about opening your eyes to structural inequality. As Anya works to save her beloved university, she realizes more and more how little the university values her in return. She’s a hedge witch and therefore a second-class citizen — and the annoyingly handsome engineer, who turns up everywhere like a bad penny, keeps having ideas about other, new, different ways to do magic. In that regard, the book reminded me a little bit of my beloved Year of the Griffin. I’d love to see a sequel where Anya really has the opportunity to explore magic’s possibilities, unfettered by unfairly hierarchical preconceptions.

Give yourself a summer treat and check out Arcanos Unraveled! Thanks, Jeanne, for putting this book in my path!

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