An engaging short story set in Hines' Libromancer universe. I wish it had been longer; Nicola was a fascinating character, and what her father did and did not know about her magical gifts was uncertain.

I thought Hines did an excellent job of showing a combination of autism and gifts: Nicola is clearly autistic, and she is also magically gifted, and these are independent of each other- though each has both problems and blessings. ( )

I find myself writing the same short story disclaimer with every short story I read – that I don’t generally like them and prefer if they add something to the overall series without being essential. I don’t think a series of books should require you to actually read every little e-short in the series. At the same time, a short story that’s just a random fluff tale without adding anything of substance to the larger series always leaves me thinking “well, why did I read this? What’s the point?”

Because I’m awkward like that

But this short story again shows how it can be excellently done – but using the book to tell some of the history and develop some insight into one of the regular side characters of the main plot:

Nicola was a very intriguing regular background character throughout the Libriomancer series and definitely one I wanted to know more about. Her magic, the magic of a bard, of music is definitely one I wanted to see expanded and explained in the same way that book magic was examined throughout the series.

I also loved Nicola herself. She’s autistic and that deeply informs her character, is a part of her character and personhood and very much part of her story, her interactions and her experiences. Yet at the same time she’s a person not just defined by her magic of being autistic. She’s also very powerful, very capable and you can see, even as a child, the core of the leader she becomes in the books.

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