Witchmark (C. L. Polk)

Witchmark
The Kingston Cycle, Book 1
C. L. Polk
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Romance
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Like countless other men and women of Aeland, Miles went away to war in distant Laneer only to return permanently scarred in mind and body... but his scars hide a deeper secret, powers that would have him branded a witch and locked away in an asylum lest he go mad with it. He actually ran away from home to join the army to keep his greedy noble family from turning him into a veritable slave, exploiting his power for their own purposes. Instead, he uses his magic, along with his medical training, to serve as a psychiatrist in a veterans hospital in the capital city of Kingston, trying to help fellow veterans who suffer from trauma-born delusions with strikingly similar symptoms. He believes he's managed to avoid suspicion, keeping a low profile and trying to limit how much power he uses in his job and life, until a stranger brings a dying man to his hospital - a dying man who knows what Miles is, and pleads for his help. Reluctantly, Miles teams up with the handsome stranger, one Mr. Tristan Hunter, to investigate... only to find a conspiracy much deeper and bigger than he expected, and secrets that make his own pale in comparison.

REVIEW: Witchmark crafts an interesting retro-flavored fantasy world, one with carriages and bicycles and "aether"-powered lights and gadgetry bringing rapid changes even as the nation relies upon noble-born Storm-Singer mages for its prosperity (while condemning any with magic born to lesser classes as witches, because clearly only blue bloods have the fortitude to properly use power of any sort) and populating it with characters who usually aren't flat or simplistic or obvious in their strengths or failings. Miles has a conflicted past that has left him with lots of trauma, learning to hide himself and downplay his abilities as a matter of survival; when caught in something much bigger that demands much more of him, he hesitates and stumbles before finding his way out of the tidy little bolthole he's made for himself. His attraction to Tristan is immediate, but there are secrets and barriers there, one major one being that Tristan is not as human as he first appears; he is an Amaranthine, somewhere between faerie and angel in nature and reputation, and he has come to Aeland with a very grave mission that might help or hurt Miles's search for a killer. Meanwhile, Miles hasn't been quite as successful as he thought in escaping the notice of his family and would-be captors. Even the sister who claims to love him does not understand him, and his father never bothers to understand anything about anyone save how they can be used or broken, depending on whether they serve his political ambitions or impede them. The investigation wends through the streets and classes of Kingston and even into the motivations behind the just-ended war in Laneer, hitting several walls and breakthrough moments and ruffling some very dangerous feathers before coming to a dramatic climax.
At times, the politics and social issues feel tangled, and Miles's family could be tooth-grinding, plus every so often I wanted to shake Miles to make him step up to the danged plate and not scurry off into hiding from the plot or his own feelings. Overall, though, the story moved well and had a decent payoff. I might end up following the series through the next book at least.

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