Cassandra MacLeane was born on Cape Breton Island and she now lives and works in Vancouver. She is a graduate of the Writer’s Studio Program at Simon Fraser University, and her work has appeared in BC Woman to Woman and (as ghostwriter for her dog Fi-ir Fli) Modern Dog. In her day job she is a medium, psychic reader and numerologist.
Until Susanna Clarke wrote Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Bloomsbury), I thought all adult fantasy novels were full of strange kingdoms and warrior princesses, but this delightful 782-page doorstop explores a complex rivalry between an autocratic magician, Mr. Norrell, who, it was said, “hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson,” and his upstart apprentice Jonathan Strange, who steals the spotlight from the moment he appears on the scene.
