This was everything! I read this in the worst reading slump I’ve had in awhile and every time I picked it up, I just wanted to savor every word and scene. The world is atmospheric. The premise of the hunt for the hala, a demiurge that is mystical and godly, was eerie. The moments the hala appeared were chilling. The little town is quiet and a bit grim but in a way that sucks you in. And the characters are well developed and feel so real.

Characters
I loved the characters in this book so much. Margaret, with her cold exterior, is holding a lot of deep loneliness, pain, and trauma. She’s in survival mode, but seeing her open up her heart to Wes and others made me want to cry. Not only is she isolated physically from the rest of town, but also in her family as her mother has become obsessed with her alchemical research and has spiraled deeper into mental illness. And yet, Margaret simply want to be loved and be seen. And despite all her emotional baggage, she was fierce, strong, and smart. She’s loyal to a fault but I loved her for that. Her well of love runs very deep.

Okok moving on to Wes. I love Wes with all my heart. He’s ambitious, stubborn, idealistic, but also kind and gentle hearted. Wes is scrappy and lovable. Wes is from the city where his family lives in on the poorer side. With his father gone and as one of the oldest children, Wes wants to make the world a better place for families like his by being a politician, most of whom are alchemists and wealthy - and not Banvishman (Irish Catholic). It’s also hinted at that Wes possibly has reading difficulties. And I’ll say that Wes is a much better person than I am because I wanted Jamie to be put in his place, and by that I mean six feet underground. God I hated Jamie and the vile things he spewed at Margaret and Wes all while thinking he’s righteous and doing his country some kind of service. Aaahhh! He makes me so furious.

Social Issues
Margaret is severely discriminated against and hated by many in town for being Yu’adir (Jewish). I was angry on her behalf. Wes is a banvishman (Irish Catholic). Banvishmen are immigrants who face discrimination. They are looked down on and seen as lesser people.

On a related but side note, the discrimination against both Yu’adir and Banvishmen made this feel like the time period was inspired by 1920s US, but the world in this story is its own.

Some of the things the townspeople would say is truly disturbing and hard to read so I recommend being in the right headspace. The author doesn’t hold back in depicting how cruel and unjust the stereotypes and prejudice towards banvishmen and yu’adirnis can be. I also liked how the author also showed how hurtful it is when you simply standby and let others spew hatred. It’s not enough to say “Im not like that. I dont do that.” By not saying anything, you are complicit in perpetuating hate. I felt it was done in a way that natural and flowed with the story.

Romance
The slow burn romance between Margaret and Jamie was sweet. I love how Margaret took things slow. She has a lot of healing to do and this resulted in several moments of doubt when it came to trusting her feeling for Wes and about Wes’ feelings for her. She has a ton of abandonment issues so I thought the romantic progression felt realistic. This was peak grump and sunshine. Wes livened her up. She steadies him. They both found anchors in the other. And I just love them so much. ㅠㅠ

As a reader commitment-phobe, I love fantasy standalones and this was excellent. Everything just worked for me. I can’t wait to read more from the author!

** Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an arc to review.

A beautiful, moving story of two young people looking to prove themselves and ending up finding themsevles and each other along the way. Magic and gothic, I was captivated from the start. Margaret is a loner and all around bad*ss herione who can take care of herself, but she's missing one thing she needs to win the Hala hunt - an alchemist. Enter Weston. This unlikely pair is drawn to each other as they figure out the mythical mysteries around them. Perfect for teen and adult fantasy readers alike!

This was a DNF for me. I had a really difficult time getting through this one, as it didn't hold my attention.
I still very much appreciate the chance to read and review this novel.

Allison Saft’s writing is beautiful and descriptive. It creates a gothic atmosphere, especially the descriptions of Welty Manor. The tone is dark and morose. It evokes sympathy for the main characters and the difficult lives they lead, and, just as importantly, it helps maintain this sympathy throughout the book.

Margaret lives a solitary life. She clings to the hope that her mother will return. The longing she had to be loved by her mother made me want to enfold her in a hug, to let her know she was enough. Her lonely existence is interrupted when Wes arrives at her doorsteps, seeking to become her mother’s apprentice. Wes was not my favorite romantic lead. I was often as irritated with him as Margaret was; however, like Margaret, I gradually warmed to him. Like Margaret, he has a complicated relationship with his family, and they have greatly impacted his decisions. They are similar in ways and have faced similar struggles. They also challenge one another, and this was extremely conducive to building romantic tension.

Just as I hoped for romance, I equally hoped for fantastical and magical elements. Both were lacking, and I was disappointed. Additionally, the legend of the hala fascinated me, but I didn’t quite understand the role of the hala and its greater purpose in the story. Adding to my disappointment was the pace of the book. Despite the beautiful descriptions and the romance, the slow pace made this a difficult book to finish. It felt a lot longer than its nearly 400 pages. While there may have been many things I liked about it, the slow pace made a lasting impression, which affected my rating of the book.

1920s fantasy thats beautifully written.
This has both Jewish and Irish Catholic reps and the story woven together is seamless. Though the love story is sweet and lovely there are deeper messages about inequality and immigration throughout that take this book to another level for me. Really enjoyable

The main reason I picked up this book was because I ended up really enjoying Saft’s previous novel. Even though it wasn’t perfect, it was extremely atmospheric, and I felt myself almost swallowed whole by it while I was listening to it.

To an extent, the same happened here. Saft is honestly fantastic at setting the scene and making the reader feel as if they were actually there. I felt the pressing isolation of Margaret, trapped in her too large house that was falling to pieces around her. I felt the press of crowds at the various events surrounding the fox hunt, and how they felt differently depending on if we were reading from Wes’s point of view or Margaret’s. Even during the fox hunt, enough time was spent on description, that you could feel the branches of the forest scratching your face as Wes and Margaret raced after the fox.

This book is honestly heavily character focused, and this may not work for everyone. I found myself feeling for Margaret quickly, even though it took her a long time to become less barbed to Wes and others around her that didn’t deserve her ire. Wes took a bit longer to grow on me, solely because I was sometimes put off by his flirting (mainly with others who weren’t Margaret). Overall, while I did end up liking their relationship, I do wish a bit less time had been spent on Wes x this other side character, because it was time he could’ve spent talking with and growing a bond with Margaret. It was just tough to read, because it never felt like a love triangle (it never really felt like this other girl was a final option), but it did actively take time away from the things I did enjoy about the book nevertheless. I understand its role, especially to lead to certain things happening, but I still wasn’t a fan.

This book is also heavy-handed when it comes to religion, and I could’ve used a bit less of it. It didn’t really actively bug me, but I’m just not a religious person and don’t really enjoy it in fiction (unless it deals with many deities). Luckily, it was mainly focused on the clash between them and how it resulted in the marginalization of Wes and Margaret in specific ways. I did enjoy seeing this facet of religion and how it was used there, with the two finding some comfort in each other through their shared pain.

Overall, I ended up enjoying this about as much as Saft’s other book, which was both great and a little disappointing. I had hoped the book overall would’ve had me love it entirely, but some things just didn’t entirely work for me. In the end, though, I did enjoy my time with the book, and will be keeping an eye out for future releases by Saft!

What a cute lil magical story!

I’m so tired of giving formal summaries of books so let me sum it up like this: Margaret misses her alchemist mom who abandoned her to search for the last Hala, a mythical creature of great power and destruction. Enter: Wes. An absolute golden retriever of a human who is on his last chance to seek out an alchemical apprenticeship with none other than Margaret’s mother. The Hala ends up finding its way to their neck of the woods, allowing them to team up and hunt it down in a lovely not-quite-enemies-to-lovers adventure.

This book was just so nice. I loved the grumpy/ray of sunshine trope, especially since the girl was the grumpy one this time which I feel like you don’t see as much? Usually it’s good sunny girl/brooding bad boy with tragic backstory. Regardless, Wes is a little puppy dog and I loved him soooo much. Saft did a great job building up both character’s backstories and making them super human. They had layers, which I haven’t seen in a fantasy book in a while.

The Hala was an interesting myth and magic system, although I didn’t find it as compelling as the characters. It might have been because some of the alchemy was complex, or because the characters were so fleshed out that the world paled in comparison. Either way it wasn’t bad, just not what I felt the real highlight of the story was. I did appreciate the fact that the hunt was set against a non medieval historical backdrop, just for a change of pace. It was a nice midway point between reeeaaaally old historical fantasy and super modern fantasy.

As character driven novels often are for me, this one felt a little slow. Not boring slow, just like you were meandering along with the protagonists. Again, not a bad thing. As I’m more generally drawn to plot driven novels, I think that might be what left me wanting a little bit more here. Despite thoroughly enjoying the banter of Wes/Maggie/Wes’s family members.

This was a bit of a short review, but I think I’ve said all there is. If you want a cute character-driven grumpy romance novel with a decent magic system, go ahead and give this one a read!

Rating: 4/5
Pacing: slow-medium
Intended audience: YA
Content warnings: abandonment, emotional abuse, death of a family member, PTSD

This is such a beautiful book. I am not sure it is exactly original as it feels like most YA fantasy romances but it is well done and any book in this genre does not stay on the library shelves long. I highly recommend this book to libraries!

A Far Wilder Magic has layers of religious and magical worldbuilding on top of what appears to be an interesting setting with very cool details. I actually really loved the setting and I was interested in knowing more about the hunt and seeing all of that unfold but I DNFed this about 20% in. The story meandered all over the place, plodding its way to the moment the main characters would get on the same page and do something to forward the plot, and I completely lost interest. The setting and the promise of the hunt couldn't save it. I also found the magic system a little too unwieldy. I couldn't follow all the details and steps and wound up forgetting how anything worked so it all became a tangled mess. The main characters didn't stand out enough to save the story.

I'm sorry I couldn't like this more.

“It’s you and me against the world, Margaret.”
Thank you to the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. Once I saw the author compare A Far Wilder Magic to The Scorpio Races (and that she was a huge TSR fan too) I put this book on my to-read list. Oh boy, was it a journey. Magic, or in this case, alchemy, comes at a cost. Power comes at a cost. Love is never easy, either. The worldbuilding was a bit hazy for me, but also sometimes info-dump-y, and it took me a little while to get truly invested and captivated by the book. Maggie’s isolated, rural town never felt as strongly grounded and real as Thisby in TSR to me, and the real-world comparisons to ethno-religious groups prejudice and oppression were pretty obvious/on the nose. But once I did get invested and captivated, I DID. Oh, the yearning in this romance. If you want yearning, if you want angst, if you want opposites attract/sunshine and grump, this is for you. If you want a confession of love that is potentially equal to Darcy and Lizzie, this book has it. But be warned. These characters and their relationship are as messy as they are beautiful. Maggie has PTSD, and there seems to be a co-dependent and emotionally manipulative/abusive element to her relationship with her famous alchemist (and chronically absent) mother, whose actual character is more heard about than seen on page but nevertheless casts a shadow over Maggie and Wes’ lives and ambitions. To Wes, though, an apprenticeship with her mother is his last hope at becoming an alchemist, his last shot and becoming “someone.” A Far Wilder Magic is definitely a character-driven story. The character arcs are beautiful, full of pain and healing, of realizing your true worth and what you want in life, and what love truly looks like. Maggie is also half Jewish (Yu’adir in the book), Wes comes from an Irish-Catholic family (Banvishman/Sumic), and it’s implied that Wes has some kind of learning disability that has consistently marked him as a failure. Both face prejudice because of their identities.  I like that we see side characters and a little bit into how prejudice is spread and upheld through complicity, peer pressure, fear, and expectations through the character of Annette. I really liked the alchemy-based magic system, learning how it works, and seeing how it has shaped Maggie and Wes’ lives differently. However, the whole reason Maggie and Wes team up and a major aspect of the plot---the Great Hunt for the hala---gets maybe a couple of chapters at the end of the book. Considering I had not read Saft’s debut novel, Down Comes the Night, prior to A Far Wilder Magic, I can’t compare how her writing has improved, evolved, etc. However, I highly recommend reading a Far Wilder Magic and have but DCTN on my to-read list!

An alchemist and a sharpshooter must team together to take down a mythical creature. The teams compete for the fortune and fame of killing the ancient hala in the annual Halfmoon Hunt, and outcasts Margaret Welty and Weston Winters need to be victorious. Allison Saft’s A Far Wilder Magic is an atmospheric, tense tale. Facing discrimination for their cultural and religious beliefs (a fictionalized Jewish-Catholic-Christian triangle), Maggie and Wes face steep odds in the hunt and with each other, but as the two opposites come to understand each other, anything is possible. A must read for anyone who loves a prickly, practical heroine and a little bit of alchemy.

I absolutely loved Down Comes the Night, so was excited to give this one a try. In the end, though....I liked this book, just not as much as the author's first.

First off, Saft's prose is undeniably beautiful, often lyrical without being overwrought. I kept pausing to savor semtemces. The gorgeous writing created an unforgettable setting and allowed everything to feel close and real and tangible. That said, there were a few things that kept this from reaching 5-star levels for me. These were entirely based on personal preference, really, and another reader may feel differently. First off, I'm probably not the right reader to appreciate the character arc of the FMC, who considers herself unlovable for the bulk of the book. Because of this misbelief she behaves in ways that came off as cold and closed. Again, personal preference, but this kind of arc is not one that tends to resonate with me and I unsurprisingly had a difficult time connecting with Margaret's character because of it. Second, the religious themes felt a bit superficial to me....the two main characters are essentially ostracized based on their religious beliefs, but I never got a sense of what their religion actually meant to them (if anything) and how it had shaped them as people. So in the end, it felt a bit like an artificially constructed conflict purely for the sake of conflict.

Quibbles aside, this was a beautiful, if quiet, book. I'm a fan of minimal worldbuilding in that I'm far more interested in the aesthetics of the world than every historical turn of events that led to the present day, and that was exactly what Saft delivered. A GORGEOUS, glittering world (think the Gilded Age, but with alchemy) unencumbered by overly descriptive backstory or dry details that don't actually impact anything. I see others have complained about the same, but I though this was one of the major strengths of this book--again, YMMV and if you prefer extremely robust world-building this may not be the best choice.

Overall, 4/5 for a beautiful book from a talented author. My issues with it probably have more to do with me than the book itself. If you're a fan of the "cold character gradually learning to open herself to love" storyline, I'd encourage you to give this one a try.

I loved how atmospheric and moody this novel was - it felt like Over the Garden Wall, and I was instantly immersed in the story. I was a little confused at times at what the time period was (is this modern times? There's technology like payphones, but it feels like the distant past?) Moments like seeing cars tended to take me out of the story, because I sensed they didn't belong there. That was juts me, though! Overall, I felt the chemistry between the two leads, love the cover, and will surely be buying it for my library.

I absolutely loved this book! I found it hard to put down. I highly recommend reading it! You won’t be disappointed.

This book snuck up on me in the most lovely way. Admittedly the premise of this one didn't immediately hook me but once I was into this book, I was IN. This story starts off quieter and then all of a sudden I was feeling so many feelings. It reminded me a lot of The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, an all-time favorite of mine, in the way that it made me feel. I can't wait to reread this some day, and I can't wait to see what Allison Saft does next!!

Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy!!

A Far Wilder Magic is a YA fantasy romance following Margaret and Weston on the hunt for the last living mythical creature. The romance tropes are opposites attract and slow burn. This is the perfect standalone for anyone looking for a fantasy romance. Thank to the publisher and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read in exchange for a review.

A Far Wilder Magic is an enticing gothic read that will attract readers who love all things dark academia! While I disliked the slow writing, the characterization was incredible in this novel! Weston and Maragaret feel so real and genuine. Unfortunately, though, the plot was slightly confusing. Nevertheless, it's still a unique read perfect for fantasy lovers!

I enjoyed this book. I feel like I would have enjoyed this more as an audiobook for some reason.
(Netgalley e-arc)

Stunning queer fiction full of life and magic. I couldn't put it down and can't wait to read it again.

I couldn't wait to see what the author came out with next, and I was NOT disappointed.
I love these sort of "us versus the world" sort of relationship dynamics and it was done so well here!!!
A strong heroine, a mysterious creature, magic, atmospheric spooky woods .... just everything you need for a gripping YA fantasy! Definitely planning on picking up all of Saft's books in the future.

While I enjoyed Down Comes the Night - my only "complaint" was that it definitely felt like a debut. But the author definitely came on strong with this second book and I wasn't pulled out of the story by the writing, even once!