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WORK TITLE: The Italian Party
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://christinalynchwriter.com/
CITY:
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
http://christinalynchwriter.com/contact/ She is the co-author of two novels under the pen name Magnus Flyte.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Harvard College, B.A., 1986; Antioch University Los Angeles, M.A., 2013.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, educator, journalist, television writer. W magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, Milan correspondent, 1987-89; formerly on writing staff or consulting producer of television shows, 1994-2007, including Unhappily Ever After; Encore, Encore; The Dead Zone, and Wildfire; College of the Sequoias, Visalia, CA, English professor, 2013–. Also teaches television writing for UCLA Extension, 2013–; online book coach, Antioch University, LA.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Christina Lynch is an American author, journalist, and television writer, as well as a professor of English at California’s College of the Sequoias. Writing under her own name, she is the author of the 2018 novel, The Italian Party. Writing with her friend, Meg Howrey, a fellow writer and former dancer with the Joffrey Ballet, Lynch penned two paranormal thrillers under the pseudonym Magnus Flyte.
A graduate of Harvard and the writing program at Antioch College Los Angeles, Lynch worked in Milan for a time as a correspondent for American fashion magazines, and then “disappeared for four years in Tuscany,” as she notes on her website. Out of her Italian hibernation, she headed for Los Angeles where she was a writer or coproducer for television shows including Unhappily Ever After; Encore, Encore; The Dead Zone and Wildfire.
City of Dark Magic
Teaming with Howrey as Magnus Flyte, Lynch published City of Dark Magic in 2012. “Cleverly combining time travel, murder, history, and musical lore, this is a breezy, lighthearted novel,” noted a Publishers Weekly critic of this work. It features young music student Sarah Weston, in Boston and happily doing research for her doctorate in neurological musicology when a letter from Prague arrives. The missive is from Maximilian Lobkowicz who, an heir to the family fortune, is turning the Lobkowicz Palace into a museum. He wants to hire Sara to track down a possible connection between one of his ancestors and famous composer Ludwig von Beethoven. Warnings of Prague being a threshold to dark magic do not dissuade plucky Sarah from taking up the offer and once in Prague she is mysteriously presented with a tiny pill which allows her to time travel, tracking down not only Lobkowicz ancestors but also Beethoven and other historical luminaries, including Tycho Brahe. While Sarah is intent on discovering the identity of Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved, a young, blind pupil of hers, Pollina, arrives from Boston with dire warnings of evil afoot. Things are further complicated by the arrival of a U.S. senator who has ambitions to the presidency. First, however, this former CIA officer must track down some very revealing letters she once wrote to her Cold War lover who was in the KGB.
Xpress Reviews contributor Crystal Renfro was not impressed with City of Dark Magic, noting: “While this novel may well find its own niche of faithful followers, it is, unfortunately, a miss for this reviewer.” Others, however, found more to like. The Publishers Weekly reviewer observed: “In a story that abounds in mysterious portents, wild coincidences, violent death, and furtive but lusty sexual congress, Flyte … also offers a veritable guide to Prague.” Higher praise came from a Kirkus Reviews critic who termed it a “fast-paced, funny, romantic mystery,” and further commented: “Even the minor characters are drawn ingeniously in this exuberant, surprising gem.” Similarly, Tor.com writer Emily Nordling noted: “[E]ven on the matter of entertainment, the novel succeeds. We are not bogged down with academic mumbo-jumbo …, nor are the novel’s twists particularly mind-boggling. Sarah is a believable and adventurous protagonist, and she and her companions are diverse, brilliant, and maddening. The action is swift and the plot tantalizing. If you find yourself bored by chatter about old Czechoslovakian statuary, just wait—someone may well have sex on one of those statues.” Glen Weldon, writing in Slate.com, likewise concluded: “Howrey and Lynch have succeeded in capturing the essence of the world’s most gloriously emo city. Despite its often kludgy plot mechanics, the Prague of City of Dark Magic never fails to shimmer exotically, erotically, on the page. And that’s all to the good, because the appeal of this particular breed of urban fantasy lies in its dark, insinuating mood. In these books, at least, a palpable sense of mystery matters a hell of a lot more than a mystery that makes sense.”
In a Compulsive Reader website interview, Lynch commented on the target audience for this work: “Perhaps we think more of where our potential readers might be when they read rather than what their expectations might be. We think of what we would ourselves enjoy reading on a long plane flight, a weekend with challenging relatives, just after a bout of concentrated study, or feeling mentally frisky. We’re eccentric readers and lovers of long dinner parties where the talk ranges from travel to science to gossip to art, to dreams and dogs and music and philosophy and sex. Our ideal reader takes something away from the books that starts a conversation or a burst of laughter among friends.”
City of Lost Dreams
Musicologist Sarah Weston returns in the sequel, City of Lost Dreams, set in Vienna. Her young friend, Pollina, is suffering from a rare autoimmune disease and Sarah has come to Vienna in search of a cure. But when the doctor she is consulting vanishes, Sarah goes into time-travel mode once again to track him down and save Pollina. She is accompanied in her efforts and travels by the four-hundred-year-old dwarf Nico, made immortal by the alchemist Tycho Brahe, and her former lover, Prince Max.
Booklist reviewer David Pitt had praise for City of Lost Dreams, noting that the authors keep “things moving at a brisk clip, not giving us a chance to pick at any loose threads. Lots of fun.” A Kirkus Reviews critic also had praise, commenting: “Sensual, witty and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, set forth in sparkling prose and inhabited by characters well-worth getting to know. Wunderbar!” Likewise, Tor.com writer Nordling observed: “If you liked Dark Magic, … you’ll likely enjoy this follow-up romp in Vienna. Magnus Flyte hasn’t failed yet to make me want to travel, if not to old Europe, than to the tumultuous pages of history. Despite Lost Dreams’ flaws, I’m glad to have dipped my toes once more into Sarah’s world.”
The Italian Party
Lynch writes under her own name in The Italian Party, set in Siena, Italy, in 1956, and featuring the young American couple, Michael and Scottie Messina. This is a novel of secrets. Michael is ostensibly in Siena to open a factory, but he is actually with the CIA and here to ensure that the next city mayor is not a Communist. Michael is also secretly gay and is happy to be in Italy so he can reunite with gay lover from college. But this lover, Duncan, also has a secret he’s hiding from Michael. Meanwhile, Scottie is pregnant but has not yet told her husband, and she is also engaged in the hunt for a young boy from Siena who was teaching her Italian. Soon the secrets catch up with all concerned in this novel that “plays like a confectionary Hollywood romance with some deeper notes reminiscent of John le Carre and Henry James,” according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer.
Others also had praise for The Italian Party. A Kirkus Reviews critic dubbed it a “spy thriller, comedy of manners, and valentine to Italy, spiked with forbidden sex and political skullduggery.” Similarly, Booklist contributor Kathy Sexton commented: “Ostensibly a fun and innocuous political romp, Lynch’s debut also highlights America’s role in foreign governments as well as the constrictive social mores of the 1950s.” Online Historical Novel Society reviewer Helene Williams offered another high assessment, observing: “This novel is dashing, fun, sexy and witty—a fun read on multiple levels.” And writing in Library Journal Online, Ron Terpening felt that in this “gracefully written debut, as effervescent as spumante, Lynch dramatizes the allure and power of secrets—in politics and marriage—while depicting with sly humor the collision between American do-gooder naïveté and Italian culture.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, December 15, 2013, David Pitt, review of City of Lost Dreams, p. 29; February 1, 2018, Kathy Sexton, review of The Italian Party, p. 36.
Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2012, review of City of Dark Magic; October 1, 2013, review of City of Lost Dreams; February 1, 2018, review The Italian Party.
Publishers Weekly, October 1, 2012, review of City of Dark Magic, p. 74; November 20, 2017, review of The Italian Party, p. 67.
Xpress Reviews, November 16, 2012, Crystal Renfro, review of City of Dark Magic.
ONLINE
Always with a Book, https://alwayswithabook.blogspot.com/ (March 20, 2018), review of The Italian Party.
Christina Lynch Website, http://christinalynchwriter.com (February 13, 2018).
Compulsive Reader, http://www.compulsivereader.com/ (November 20, 2013), “Interview with Christina Lynch and Meg Howrey (Magnus Flyte).”
Historical Novel Society, https://historicalnovelsociety.org (February 1, 2018), Helene Williams, review of The Italian Party.
Library Journal Online, https://reviews.libraryjournal.com/ (November 1, 2017), Ron Terpening, review of The Italian Party.
Literary Orange, https://literaryorange.org/ (February 13, 2018), “Christina Lynch.”
Lit Bitch, https://thelitbitch.com/ (November 29, 2013), review of City of Lost Dreams.
Rhapsody in Books Weblog, https://rhapsodyinbooks.wordpress.com/ (December 17, 2013), review of City of Dark Magic and City of Lost Dreams.
Slate.com, http://www.slate.com/ (November 30, 2012 ), Glen Weldon, review of City of Dark Magic.
Tor.com, https://www.tor.com/ (November 27, 2012), Emily Nordling, review of City of Dark Magic; (January 7, 2014), Emily Nordling, review of City of Lost Dreams.*
Magnus Flyte
A pseudonym used by Meg Howrey, Christina Lynch
Series
City of Dark Magic
1. City of Dark Magic (2012)
2. City of Lost Dreams (2013)
Christina Lynch’s picaresque journey includes chapters in Chicago and at Harvard, where she was an editor on the Harvard Lampoon. She was the Milan correspondent for W magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, and disappeared for four years in Tuscany. In L.A. she was on the writing staff of Unhappily Ever After; Encore, Encore; The Dead Zone and Wildfire. She now lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. She is the co-author of two novels under the pen name Magnus Flyte. She teaches at College of the Sequoias. The Italian Party is her debut novel.
Author photo by Stacy Brand.
Christina Lynch’s picaresque journey includes chapters in Chicago and Harvard, where she was an editor on the Harvard Lampoon. She was the Milan correspondent for W Magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, and disappeared for four years in Tuscany. In Los Angeles, she was on the writing staff for the television shows Unhappily Ever After, Encore! Encore!, The Dead Zone, and Wildfire. Lynch now lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills and teaches at College of the Sequoias. She is the co-author of two novels under the pen name Magnus Flyte. The Italian Party (2018) is her debut novel under her own name.
QUOTE:
disappeared for four years in Tuscany.
Christina Lynch is a novelist, television writer and professor.
A former Milan correspondent for W and Women’s Wear Daily, she has written on staff for television shows such as The Dead Zone, Encore! Encore!, Unhappily Ever After and Wildfire.
A devoted educator, she has taught television writing forUCLA Extension, and is a full-time tenure track Professor of English at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California, where she is also the faculty advisor for the literary magazine.
Christina’s novel The Italian Party will be published March 20, 2018 by St. Martin’s Press. It’s set in Italy in 1956, and is available for pre-order on Amazonnow, or from IndieBound. You can find it on Goodreads, too. And don’t forget to check out the Pinterest page she created for the story. Yes, Italy is highly photogenic!
Christina Lynch’s picaresque journey includes chapters in Chicago and at Harvard, where she was an editor on the Harvard Lampoon. She was the Milan correspondent for W magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, and disappeared for four years in Tuscany. In L.A. she was on the writing staff of Unhappily Ever After; Encore, Encore; The Dead Zone and Wildfire. She now lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. She is the co-author of two novels under the pen name Magnus Flyte. She teaches at College of the Sequoias. The Italian Party is her debut novel.
QUOTE:
Perhaps we think more of where our potential readers might be when they read rather than what their expectations might be. We think of what we would ourselves enjoy reading on a long plane flight, a weekend with challenging relatives, just after a bout of concentrated study, or feeling mentally frisky. We’re eccentric readers and lovers of long dinner parties where the talk ranges from travel to science to gossip to art, to dreams and dogs and music and philosophy and sex. Our ideal reader takes something away from the books that starts a conversation or a burst of laughter among friends.
Interview with Christina Lynch and Meg Howrey (Magnus Flyte)
November 20, 2013
How did your collaboration under the name Magnus Flyte come about?
We met at a writers’ retreat on an island off Cape Cod and became fans of each other’s work. When we gotback to California, we started getting together for mini writers’ retreats at Chris’s house near Sequoia National Park. The plot for our first novel, CITY OF DARK MAGIC was hatched on a walk with Chris’s dog Max. The name “Magnus Flyte” is a hybrid (much like our novel). “Magnus” was a usurping Roman senator (not so different from City of Dark Magic’s villain, Charlotte Yates) and “Flyte” is for Sebastian Flyte, Evelyn Waugh’s wonderful lush who, like Max in our novel, has a difficult relationship with his highborn family and the house they live in.
There have been a lot of news stories lately about women who use male pen names, especially when writing genre fiction. Do you think it’s helpful?
Possibly helpful to the author, who may have any number of reasons to use a pen name – a desire to escape gender stereotyping, anonymity, sheer whimsy. One can only imagine how delighted JK Rowling was to watch her book get wonderful reviews without any references to Voldemort! Since we had heard that men avoid books by women, we decided to choose a male pseudonym to reach both genders. But then our identities were made public from the beginning, so we didn’t get a chance to see if “Magnus Flyte” would fool anyone. No matter, we love him anyway.
In CITY OF DARK MAGIC, Prague was very much its own character as well as the setting for the novel. Why did you choose Vienna to be the setting of CITY OF LOST DREAMS?
Vienna was the adopted home of Beethoven and we had grown so fond of old LVB in the first novel that we were curious about visiting at least one of the 60 apartments he lived in there as, reportedly, the worst tenant ever. Also, neither of us had ever been to Vienn And finally, we highly recommend all writers setting a novel in a beautiful European city so that one is forced to travel there and do research (eat sachertorte, visit castles) in a manner that is tax deductible. (Note to I.R.S: don’t even think about it, we have all our receipts.)
You did quite a lot of research for CITY OF DARK MAGIC—visited Prague, had a great deal of notes and researched music as well. How much research did you do for CITY OF LOST DREAMS?
Binders! Color-coded binders! In the first novel we had briefly touched upon the life of poet Elizabeth Weston, her stepfather Edward Kelley, and Kelley’s partner in magic, Dr. John Dee. These were all characters we wanted to explore a bit more, particularly Elizabeth, about whom not very much is known. (A fact that we believe she would find completely unacceptable– the woman was more famous than Shakespeare in her time.) Along the way we got interested in Franz Anton Mesmer (who gave us the word “mesmerized” and the phrase “animal magnetism”). Not everything makes it in. Well, everything makes it in on the first draft, because Magnus is a terrible pack rat for obscure history, but then we prune him down a bit.
As a heroine, Sarah Weston is particularly memorable. How did her character evolve in your second novel?
Sarah still isn’t terribly interested in winning prizes for decorum, though perhaps in the second book she is not quite as guided by certain…compulsions. In the sequel she is fighting to save the life of someone she loves, so she’s more focused. The challenges she faces are personal, and she’s questioning herself a lot more: what she believes, what she wants. But as Sarah herself says, she’s no princess. And she’s not one to look a gifted horseman in the mouth.
In City of Dark Magic, the science angle had a lot to do with perception and time travel. You continue those themes in the sequel, and also mix in some ideas about healing and medicine.
We’ve both been interested in the brain’s influence on disease for a while, but in August 2012 when we returned from our research trip to Vienna, Chris’s dog Max was deathly ill. It turned out to be an autoimmune disease with no known cause. With great treatment at UC Davis Max went into remission and is now very healthy, but the episode raised a lot of interesting questions about what medicine is and isn’t able to do, and how ultimately mysterious our immune systems are. Why does a healthy body turn on itself? How can that process be reversed? What power does the mind have? And is Chris’s dog Max really – as we suspect – the reincarnation of the 6th Duke of Devonshire?
Your writing is loaded with references from the arts, history and politics. What sort of reader did you envision for this series?
Perhaps we think more of where our potential readers might be when they read rather than what their expectations might be. We think of what we would ourselves enjoy reading on a long plane flight, a weekend with challenging relatives, just after a bout of concentrated study, or feeling mentally frisky. We’re eccentric readers and lovers of long dinner parties where the talk ranges from travel to science to gossip to art, to dreams and dogs and music and philosophy and sex. Our ideal reader takes something away from the books that starts a conversation or a burst of laughter among friends. We’ve loved hearing from readers that were inspired to check out Prague, or listen to Beethoven, or find out more about certain historical characters. And of course we’re deeply indebted to booksellers for knowing whose hands to put the book in. Booksellers are the real celebrities.
What is your process for co-writing? What are some of the challenges and benefits of writing with a partner? How has that process come to change now that you have completed two novels?
Both books were written in the same way, according to the rules laid down by Magnus Flyte. We alternate chapters, relay style, responding to whatever you were just sent. No rewriting until we get to the end. Trying our best to inspire, amuse, and surprise each other.
Some chapters get sent to the other person with the heading: “You might want to kill me for this one.” (Inevitably, this chapter will be received rapturously.) In the revision process there is a lot more discussion but we give each other a free hand, no “this is my chapter and you can’t touch it.” The best sentence wins, the egos are parked outside. By the end we have trouble remembering who wrote what, and in fact a great many paragraphs and even single sentences are a combination of both writers. People always ask us “what happens when you disagree?” and we have only the dull answer that when we disagree we just talk and listen until we come up with something that we both can live with.
You have developed quite a backstory for Magnus Flyte, who “may have ties to one or more intelligence organizations, including a radical group of Antarctic separatists” and “may be the author of a monograph on carnivorous butterflies.” How did Magnus Flyte, the author, become such a colorful character?
Constructing Magnus’s biography (and extensive bibliography) is actually the only time we have ever written together in the same room. It was a bit like improv…or an accelerated version of our writing process.
Author I think Magnus wrote a bibliography of a 14th century warrior…
Author B: A warrior priest. A warrior priest named Clement. Clement something…
Author Clement the Bald.
Author B: Perfect.
The legend of Magnus continues to grow. He just accidentally became king of an island nation. He’s taken up smelting. He’s writing a treatise on the best way to make love in the outdoors.
These books sit in an unusual space, crossing multiple genres. What are some of your individual and collective literary influences?
We both emerged from the womb with books in our hands and haven’t stopped reading since then, omnivorously and eccentrically. We have a lot of shared enthusiasms – from Nancy Mitford to neuroscience. Chris has always had a twisted passion for Nabokov and SJ Perelman, Meg loves Evelyn Waugh and Aldous Huxley. We both love mysteries: Simenon, Sayers, Marsh. The list is long and genres be damned.
Can you give us any hints about your next novel or where the series is going?
Only Magnus knows.
QUOTE:
spy thriller, comedy of manners, and valentine to Italy, spiked with forbidden sex and political skulduggery.
Lynch, Christina: THE ITALIAN PARTY
Kirkus Reviews. (Feb. 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Lynch, Christina THE ITALIAN PARTY St. Martin's (Adult Fiction) $25.99 3, 20 ISBN: 978-1-250-14783-7
Set in Siena in 1956, this debut novel is a spy thriller, comedy of manners, and valentine to Italy, spiked with forbidden sex and political skulduggery.
Eleven years after the end of World War II, young American newlyweds Scottie and Michael Messina arrive in Siena burdened with secrets. Michael is ostensibly there to sell tractors for Ford. In fact, he's a CIA operative whose mission is to make sure the Communist mayor is defeated. He's hiding something even more explosive, but his high-spirited wife, Scottie, doesn't have a clue. She's along as helpmeet--but, unbeknownst to Michael, is carrying a baby that's not his. Complications, as they say, ensue. Robertino, a 14-year-old boy, signs on as Scottie's Italian tutor; he's also Michael's "asset," charged with stealing the local Communist Party membership rolls. When Robertino goes missing, everyone fears the worst. There's a large supporting cast in this cinematic story, including the randy Communist mayor, Ugo; the seductive aristocrat, Carlo; and the smooth American diplomat (and Michael's special friend), Duncan. Clare Boothe Luce, the actual American ambassador to Italy, also figures in the proceedings. Much of this is fun: packed with lies and betrayals, the book delivers plenty of juicy surprises. And the author, who was a correspondent in Italy for W and Women's Wear Daily, takes obvious pleasure in writing about the country's history, customs, and culinary feats. The book falters when it tries for pathos: the death of Robertino's mother and the agony of Carlo's wife over the loss of their son don't mesh well with the rest of the action. The story also bogs down at times--shorter would have been better--and occasionally strains credulity.
The ending is unexpected, with the author displaying a sophisticated, nuanced view of love and marriage that feels very modern. Or maybe it's just Italian.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Lynch, Christina: THE ITALIAN PARTY." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525461522/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=769089b4. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525461522
QUOTE:
story plays like a confectionary Hollywood romance with some deeper notes reminiscent of John le Carre and Henry James.
The Italian Party
Publishers Weekly. 264.47 (Nov. 20, 2017): p67.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Italian Party
Christina Lynch. St. Martin's, $25.99 (336p)
ISBN 978-1-250-14783-7
In Lynch's perceptive debut, set in 1956, Michael and Scottie Messina are a glamorous young American couple who have arrived in Siena, Italy, where the former is to open a Ford tractor agency. But this is just a cover story; unknown to Scottie, Michael is a CIA agent charged with ensuring that the city's next mayor will not be a Communist. Michael and Scottie also have other secrets: Michael is a closeted gay man who has come to Italy to be with Duncan, his lover from Yale, who has something he is hiding from Michael. And Scottie is pregnant and has yet to get up the nerve to tell her husband, for reasons that include yet another secret. Michael is soon involved in espionage capers, while Scottie becomes embroiled in the search for a missing local youth she befriended. The secrets come out just as Ambassador Clare Booth Luce arrives in Siena for a visit. The story plays like a confectionary Hollywood romance with some deeper notes reminiscent of John le Carre and Henry James. Scottie is a resilient main character who might have been played by Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn in a 1950s movie adaptation of this entertainingly subversive take on that seemingly innocent period. Agent: Claudia Cross, Folio Literary Management. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Italian Party." Publishers Weekly, 20 Nov. 2017, p. 67. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A517262059/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c145e8ca. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A517262059
QUOTE:
keeps things moving at a brisk clip, not giving us a chance to pick at any loose threads. Lots of fun.
City of Lost Dreams
David Pitt
Booklist. 110.8 (Dec. 15, 2013): p29.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
City of Lost Dreams. By Magnus Flyte. Dec. 2013.355p. Penguin, paper, $16 (9780143123279).
The follow-up to City of Dark Magic (2012) finds musicologist Sarah Weston in Vienna, trying to find a cure for her young friend Pollina's rare autoimmune disease. Nico, the dwarf made immortal in 1601 by the astronomer-alchemist Tycho Brahe, has his own idea about a cure, but it involves some pretty scary ancient technologies. Meanwhile, Sarah is trying to track down another doctor, but he has vanished, leaving behind an old clock apparently stolen from the British Museum; and as much as she's reluctant to ask former lover Max Anderson for help, he's the guy with the museum connections. Oh, and let's not forget Westonia, the time-travel drug, and the villainous woman operating behind the scenes as a sort of puppetmaster. Trying to assign this book to a genre would probably result in a headache, so just think of it as a blend of urban fantasy, romantic comedy, and time-travel adventure, with an extra twist of weirdness. Flyte--a pseudonym for the team of novelist Meg Howrey and TV writer Christina Lynch--keeps things moving at a brisk clip, not giving us a chance to pick at any loose threads. Lots of fun.--David Pitt
Pitt, David
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Pitt, David. "City of Lost Dreams." Booklist, 15 Dec. 2013, p. 29. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A355673414/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1fb1e544. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A355673414
QUOTE:
Sensual, witty and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, set forth in sparkling prose and inhabited by characters well-worth getting to know. Wunderbar!
Flyte, Magnus: CITY OF LOST DREAMS
Kirkus Reviews. (Oct. 1, 2013):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Flyte, Magnus CITY OF LOST DREAMS Penguin (Adult Fiction) $16.00 11, 26 ISBN: 978-0-14-312327-9
Sequel to City of Dark Magic (2012), set in a world where alchemy, magic and science all work; another lively, amusing romantic mystery from the pseudonymous Flyte (Meg Howrey and Christina Lynch). Musicologist Sarah Weston arrives in Vienna hoping to find a cure for her friend, the blind young composer Pollina, who's dying of an intractable ailment. Meanwhile, Sarah's friend and ally, the drunkenly world-weary, 400-year-old dwarf Nico Pertusato, wanders around London seeking an ancient alchemical remedy only to discover that a mysterious adversary has anticipated his every move. In Prague, Prince Max, Sarah's ex-lover, ponders the baffling reappearance of a saint who drowned 800 years ago, then a World War II Czech resistance hero shot by the Gestapo; meanwhile, his seductive new girlfriend, redheaded British historian Harriet Hunter, pursues a hidden agenda of her own. Rumor has it that the brilliant biochemist Bettina M�ller may have formulated a treatment for Pollina, but when Sarah tries to contact her, M�ller proves peculiarly elusive and demands that Sarah return the priceless antique model ship purloined from the British Museum that M�ller, for some reason, has concealed in her refrigerator. Growing desperate, Sarah makes use of a drug that frees her mind to float back through the centuries and peruse the work of Philippine Welser, the brilliant alchemist wife of Emperor Rudolf II, besides, that is, enjoying all the food and culture Prague and Vienna have to offer, not to mention mind-blowing sex with a hot Austrian noble in a stable that's in the process of burning down (she still remembers to use a condom). Sensual, witty and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, set forth in sparkling prose and inhabited by characters well-worth getting to know. Wunderbar!
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Flyte, Magnus: CITY OF LOST DREAMS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Oct. 2013. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A344130476/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=4504a3cf. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A344130476
QUOTE:
fast-paced, funny, romantic mystery.
Even the minor characters are drawn ingeniously in this exuberant, surprising gem.
Flyte, Magnus: CITY OF DARK MAGIC
Kirkus Reviews. (Oct. 1, 2012):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Flyte, Magnus CITY OF DARK MAGIC Penguin (Adult Fiction) $16.00 11, 27 ISBN: 978-0-14-312268-5
The riddle of Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved," alchemy and clandestine love fuse in this fast-paced, funny, romantic mystery. Meg Howrey (The Cranes Dance, 2012, etc.) and television writer Christina Lynch have combined their talents, writing under the pseudonym Magnus Flyte. Brilliant musicologist Sarah Weston has been summoned to Prague to catalog Beethoven manuscripts at the Lobkowicz Palace. How can she refuse? Her mentor, Professor Sherbatsky, has defenestrated himself from the palace, and a dwarf has appeared at her door, encouraging her to go and presenting her with a pillbox containing what appears to be a toenail clipping. Yet Prague is a dangerous place, a place where the walls between worlds have thinned to precariously fragile layers. But Sarah cannot believe Sherbatsky committed suicide, and she is eager to study the manuscripts, so she begins to pack. Before she can even get to the airport, however, someone breaks into her apartment. Nothing appears to be stolen, but an ominous alchemical symbol has been drawn on her kitchen ceiling. Once in Prague, events turn both stranger and sexier. The castle lies at the center of a dispute between two branches of the Lobkowicz family. As Sarah dutifully sifts through the manuscripts, she discovers clues not only about the "Immortal Beloved," but also Sherbatsky's strange behavior leading up to his death. The other scholars hired that summer to catalog the castle's contents suspect Sherbatsky of drug use, and Sarah finds herself experimenting with the time-warping drug. She also accidentally has anonymous sex in the bathroom, joins forces with a 400-year-old dwarf, lands in jail and falls in love with the prince. But Sarah has also attracted an enemy, someone who will stop at nothing to keep Sarah from discovering a secret of perhaps international proportions. Even the minor characters are drawn ingeniously in this exuberant, surprising gem.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Flyte, Magnus: CITY OF DARK MAGIC." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Oct. 2012. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A303620515/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c907574e. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A303620515
QUOTE:
Cleverly combining time travel, murder, history, and musical lore, this is a breezy, lighthearted novel.
In a story that abounds in mysterious portents, wild coincidences, violent death, and furtive but lusty sexual congress, Flyte .. also offers a veritable guide to Prague
City of Dark Magic
Publishers Weekly. 259.40 (Oct. 1, 2012): p74.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
City of Dark Magic
Magnus Flyte. Penguin, $16 trade paper (464p) ISBN 978-0-14-312268-5
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Cleverly combining time travel, murder, history, and musical lore, this is a breezy, lighthearted novel. Sarah Weston is researching her Ph.D. in neurological musicology in Boston when a letter arrives summoning her to Prague. Maximilian Lobkowicz, the heir to the ancient Lobkowicz fortune, is planning to turn the family palace, located within the Prague Castle complex, into a museum; Sarah's job will be to establish the relationship between one of the first Lobkowicz princes and Ludwig von Beethoven. Sarah is warned that Prague is "a threshold" to "dark magic," passion and violence, and she suspects that mysteries await. And how. A little person gives Sarah a pill shaped like one of Beethoven's toenails that allows her to move through time, encapsulating many centuries. She not only sees Beethoven but also several of the dead Lobkowicz princes; Tycho Brahe, the 16th-century alchemist; and also Nico, who was at that time called Jepp and is now 400 years old. Plucky, impulsive, and reckless, Sarah is determined to discover the identity of Beethoven's Immortal Beloved, and time and again she's a hair's breath from death in dangerous situations. Tensions rise when Sarah's Boston violin pupil, 11-year-old blind musical prodigy Pollina, arrives in Prague and warns Sarah about forces conspiring against her. Complicating an already tangled plot, an evil senator from Virginia with the U.S. presidency in her sights schemes to kill anyone between her and some incriminating letters she wrote to her erstwhile lover, a KGB officer, while she was CIA. In a story that abounds in mysterious portents, wild coincidences, violent death, and furtive but lusty sexual congress, Flyte (the pseudonym for TV writer Christina Lynch and Meg Howrey, author of Cranes Dance) also offers a veritable guide to Prague that includes such historical references as Rabbi Loew's golem, the Golden Fleece, the Holy Infant of Prague, and a vault under St. Virus Cathedral, where Sarah and Max find themselves in a tense denouement that promises a sequel. (Dec.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"City of Dark Magic." Publishers Weekly, 1 Oct. 2012, p. 74. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A304307296/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=fd844e4f. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A304307296
QUOTE:
While this novel may well find its own niche of faithful followers, it is, unfortunately, a miss for this reviewer
Flyte, Magnus. City of Dark Magic
Crystal Renfro
Xpress Reviews. (Nov. 16, 2012):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 Library Journals, LLC
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/xpress/884170-289/xpress_reviews-first_look_at_new.html.csp
Full Text:
Flyte, Magnus. City of Dark Magic. Penguin Group (USA). Dec. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780143122685. pap. $16; eISBN 9781101603062. F
Sarah Weston travels to Prague Castle to complete the work of her late mentor, Dr. Sherbasky, cataloging rare manuscripts of Beethoven. She is immediately plunged into a disturbingly oppressive atmosphere of drugs, secrets, and politics, highlighted by an unusual cast of coworkers who each have their own quirky personalities. Overshadowing all is her uneasy confusion over what really happened to Dr. Sherbasky and what he had discovered about the mysteries surrounding the recently recovered manuscripts. With the introduction of legends that Prague is home to portals to hell, the reader is dropped into a confusing entanglement of plots, personalities, and mysteries that involve alchemical elements. Some readers may find Sarah's open sexual lifestyle a distasteful rather than romantic addition to the main story line.
Verdict While this novel may well find its own niche of faithful followers, it is, unfortunately, a miss for this reviewer. Readers looking for a fast-paced, historically rich, romantic adventure with paranormal elements would be better directed to Deborah Harkness's "All Souls Trilogy" (A Discovery of Witches; Shadow of Night). Flyte is a pseudonym for the writing duo of Meg Howrey (The Cranes Dance) and television writer Christina Lynch.--Crystal Renfro, Georgia Inst. of Technology Lib. & Information Ctr., Atlanta
Renfro, Crystal
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Renfro, Crystal. "Flyte, Magnus. City of Dark Magic." Xpress Reviews, 16 Nov. 2012. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A310150872/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0c0f80d8. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A310150872
QUOTE:
Ostensibly a fun and innocuous political romp, Lynch's debut also highlights America's role in foreign governments as well as the constrictive social mores of the 1950s.
Booklist
February 1, 2018, Kathy Sexton, review of The Italian Party, p. 36.
Booklist Reviews 2018 February #1
Ostensibly a fun and innocuous political romp, Lynch's debut also highlights America's role in foreign governments as well as the constrictive social mores of the 1950s. Scottie and Michael Messina have recently gotten married after a whirlwind romance and are moving to Siena, Italy, for Michael's job as a tractor salesman. Both parties, however, are secretly using the marriage as a cover. Michael is actually a CIA agent working to keep communism at bay, and Scottie is pregnant by another man. Each keeps even more secrets from the other as they become embedded in the Italian culture—itself seemingly working hard at maintaining appearances. Lynch was the Milan correspondent for W Magazine and Women's Wear Daily, and her affection for and knowledge of the Italian people and way of living are evident: her food descriptions in particular are droolworthy. Readers will be rooting for Michael and Scottie through the story's many adventures and intrigue, while political and social commentary add an extra layer of depth. Copyright 2018 Booklist Reviews.
"[Lynch's] affection for and knowledge of the Italian people and way of living are evident: her food descriptions in particular are droolworthy. Readers will be rooting for Michael and Scottie through the story’s many adventures and intrigue, while political and social commentary add an extra layer of depth." ―Booklist
Review of “City of Dark Magic” and “City of Lost Dreams” by Magnus Flyte
Posted on 12/17/2013 by rhapsodyinbooks
These two books had, for me, an uneven mix of good and bad. At times it seemed like I was reading the work of a bunch of peurile guys sitting around fantasizing about elements to add for a fun story: brilliant and beautiful heroine who loves sex, handsome and rich hero, cardboard evil woman (one for each of the books), an abundance of flatulence jokes, anonymous sex, instant sex, solitary sex, athletic sex, a bit of murder, a bit of mayhem, a travelogue (first for Prague, and in the second book, Vienna), hallucinogenic toenails, alchemy, and the obligatory dwarf.
[Much to my surprise, the bunch of peurile guys I imagined to be using the pseudonym Magnus Flyte actually turned out to be two female writers working in collaboration: novelist Meg Howrey and screenwriter Christina Lynch.]
city-of-dark-magic
In this sort of college version of Dan Brown (history/mystery/art/evil/blasts from the past), we follow the escapades of Sarah Weston, 26 when we first meet her, who is a graduate student of neuromusicology. She has been invited to Prague to be a part of a team of academics curating a museum collection at the Lobkowicz Palace, where she will work on authenticating the papers of Beethoven, whose work is her specialty. Sarah believes she has been selected on the recommendation of her mentor, Dr. Absalom Sherbatsky, who preceded her there but died mysteriously in a seeming suicide. He had always championed Sarah because of her seemingly heightened power of sense, which, however, is not as great as that of her precocious, blind 11-year-old piano student Pollina.
Pollina is distraught that Sarah is going to Prague. She warns her:
“Prague is a threshold … between the life of good and…the other. Prague is a place where the fabric of time is thin.”
How does Pollina know this? It’s all part of the “spooky action at a distance” (as Einstein called quantum entanglement, or QE). Sarah doesn’t refer to QE directly, although she’s all over the ideas of dark matter and dark energy and the “relativity” of time. As PBS explains QE:
“…results, coming from both theoretical and experimental considerations, strongly support the conclusion that the universe admits interconnections that are not local. Something that happens over here can be entwined with something that happens over there even if nothing travels from here to there—and even if there isn’t enough time for anything, even light, to travel between the events.”
And plenty of that happens in these books.
In Prague, Sarah joins forces with the heir to the castle – Max, and his friend the dwarf Nico, to discover why Dr. Sherbatsky died, why others are being murdered, and why even Sarah’s life is in danger for trying to get to the bottom of everything. In addition, she helps Max in his quest for the Golden Fleece, depicted in this series as a book that might contain “the mystical theory of everything, or spells of ultimate power, or maybe just a load of crap.” In order to find out, Sarah needs to take the hallucinogenic toenails….
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The second installment takes place two years later, this time in Vienna, and reads even more like a travel guide that Arthur Frommer or Rick Steves might have written (after a hard night of drinking of drugs). There is a new absurdly Evil Female Villain, but now she is a Femme Fatale rather than a Government Baddie. Pollina plays a larger role, acting as a mirror to enable us to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys (as if we needed help): i.e., if you care about the blind prodigy child, you are Good. If you don’t, you are Evil.
Evaluation: These books incorporate an eclectic blend of art, music, and history, and have both positive and negative aspects. I’ve mentioned some of the negative; but I would be remiss not to point out that there are some very nice epistemological discussions of science versus magic, some great travel info (if a bit too much), and wonderful reflections on the power of music, “the language that transversed time.” So true.
If you would appreciate a “zany” sort of “mad-cap” mystery with lots of travel and art information, these books will definitely fit the bill.
Rating: 2.5/5
Published by Penguin Books, 2012 and 2013
QUOTE:
This novel is dashing, fun, sexy and witty—a fun read on multiple levels.
The Italian Party
BY CHRISTINA LYNCH
Find & buy on
Michael Messina and his new bride, Scottie, seem to have it all, as young, beautiful Americans living in Siena, Italy, in the mid-1950s. Michael’s job is to sell American tractors to Italian farmers, as part of the United States’ assistance program in Europe. The Messinas have a new Ford Fairlane, an apartment with a view of the city’s main piazza, and their whole lives ahead of them. They also have some big secrets from each other, which readers learn about in the first pages of the novel.
Who Michael and Scottie really are emerges slowly through the narrative; life in a foreign country, with unfamiliar jobs, relationships, and even food, causes them to learn more about themselves and changes how they treat each other. All the trials a young couple go through—learning to live with each other, communicating feelings and desires, building a shared future—are more difficult because of both culture shock and the secrecy.
Lynch’s handling of the main characters is sensitive and honest; we feel their hidden pain and joy. The subplots, which include spying, kidnapping, horsemanship, and sexuality, add historical depth and nuance. Readers learn much about how the US government was actually involved in Cold War Europe, undermining regimes and influencing local economies and politics. The Italian characters range from prostitutes to politicians to elegant landowners, and Lynch draws them well, providing solid connections between them and the Americans. This novel is dashing, fun, sexy and witty—a fun read on multiple levels.
PUBLISHER
St. Martin's
PUBLISHED
2018
CENTURY
20th Century
PRICE
(US) $25.99
(CA) $36.99
ISBN
(US) 9781250147837
FORMAT
Hardback
PAGES
336
Review
APPEARED IN
HNR Issue 83 (February 2018)
REVIEWED BY
Helene Williams
QUOTE:
If you liked Dark Magic, however, you’ll likely enjoy this follow-up romp in Vienna. Magnus Flyte hasn’t failed yet to make me want to travel, if not to old Europe, than to the tumultuous pages of history. Despite Lost Dreams’ flaws, I’m glad to have dipped my toes once more into Sarah’s world.
A Romp in Vienna: City of Lost Dreams by Magnus Flyte
Emily Nordling
Tue Jan 7, 2014 6:00pm Post a comment Favorite This
Writing duo Magnus Flyte (composed of authors Meg Howrey and Christina Lynch) didn’t wait long to send their protagonist on another life-altering quest. Where 2012’s City of Dark Magic took Sarah to the historical underbelly of Prague, City of Lost Dreams places her among the gossiping crowds of Vienna, where modern science turns out to be just as wacky as all those Renaissance alchemists she’d encountered last time.
Sarah returns to the Old World with just one thing in mind: to find a cure for her friend, the young piano prodigy, Pollina. She’s not seeking immortality, per se, but altering the course of death is never a narrow path. In a haze of science, magic, history, and art, Sarah must muddle her way through the desires of centuries of others like her, who cannot accept that time will someday stop moving.
Sarah, along with her ex-boyfriend Prince Max and the immortal dwarf Nico, are all seeking help for Pollina in their own ways, no matter how selfish their ulterior motives (Nico, like any good immortal, just wants to figure out a way to die). Dr. Bettina Müller in Vienna seems to have found the cure for the rare disease that is ailing Pollina, but the nanobiologist is caught up in some kind of scandal. She disappears after her first meeting with Sarah, and starts to send her cryptic messages and bizarre tasks. Sarah, willing to do anything at all to help Pollina, finds herself carting around stolen art, accidentally inhaling centuries-old, mind-boggling drugs, and spying on Vienna’s elites to find our who stole Dr. Müller’s laptop. Things get even weirder when people start walking out of their historical moments and into the present. Sarah thought her adventures from her trip in Prague had ended, but it turns out that the quest for the golden fleece (yes, that golden fleece) is still in full-gear, and seeking a cure for her friend has placed her yet again in the heart of it.
When I first heard about the release of a sequel to the fabulous City of Dark Magic, I was dubious about how worthwhile it might be. The former novel hadn’t exactly tied up loose ends—the team of protagonists obviously never find the golden fleece they had been seeking—but that worked for me. Flyte made it quite clear that people go mad seeking the fleece and that folks in the modern era should learn from the mistakes of history. The prospect of this quest making a comeback made me suspicious of the characters’ motivations before I even opened the first page.
For the most part, these suspicions played out; City of Lost Dreams reads very much like your typical sequel. The character development from the first novel is all but erased as Sarah continues to delude herself that empirical and scientific evidence can trump the weird, nebulous world of history. The romance is equally frustrating. Sarah and Max broke up somewhere in the hazy between-books-timeline, and will now reenact their coming-together when they meet again for the first time since the break-up. This, of course, allows Sarah to sleep with at least one new character before her and Max’s reunion—but the sex in the novel is so played down compared to its prequel, I couldn’t help but feel cheated. Sex in a stable just doesn’t live up to the defacement of a priceless historical artifact.
Lost Dream’s engagement with history is similarly weak by comparison, consigning itself mostly to the pre-modern era. The Nazi plots and contemporary political intrigue are erased in the case of the former and weakened in the case of the latter. While this simplification of timelines and narrative threads certainly made the novel more straightforward than its predecessor, it lost much of the thematic nuance that I had found so intriguing. I wondered, as I was reading it, if perhaps I had misread Dark Magic and had given it more credit than it deserved; however since most of my complaints about its sequel stem from a comparison of the two, I find that I’m still happy to defend the former.
All of this is not to say that I didn’t find Lost Dreams to be an enjoyable read. The Magnus Flyte duo know how to write a page-turner. Sarah remains a flawed but engaging protagonist, who is smarter than your average hero, but emotionally stunted in a way that is at times frustrating and at times endearing. Harriet, Sarah’s new “rival” for Max, is a wonderful and unique character who I found distressingly relatable. Harriet is so singularly obsessed with experiencing “true” history, that she becomes addicted to a drug (westonia) that allows her to experience all of time at once. She is offered, of course, as a foil to Sarah, who desires the drug but ultimately resists it. However, she is treated graciously and sympathetically, and never once do the two women fight over Max. Another new female character—Renaissance poet Elizabeth Jane Weston—also makes an appearance as a compelling, and nuanced antagonist. If nothing else, Lost Dreams is absolutely swimming in badass female leads, including Pollina, the wise (and wise-ass) child prodigy around whom the action of the novel takes place.
I’ve seen a few reviews for the novel floating around that claim not to have read Dark Magic before engaging with the sequel, and this is not something I’d recommend. Lost Dreams does not work as a stand-alone novel. If you liked Dark Magic, however, you’ll likely enjoy this follow-up romp in Vienna. Magnus Flyte hasn’t failed yet to make me want to travel, if not to old Europe, than to the tumultuous pages of history. Despite Lost Dreams’ flaws, I’m glad to have dipped my toes once more into Sarah’s world.
City of Lost Dreams is available now from Viking Penguin.
QUOTE:
But, even on the matter of entertainment, the novel succeeds. We are not bogged down with academic mumbo-jumbo as my review might imply, nor are the novel’s twists particularly mind-boggling. Sarah is a believable and adventurous protagonist, and she and her companions are diverse, brilliant, and maddening. The action is swift and the plot tantalizing. If you find yourself bored by chatter about old Czechoslovakian statuary, just wait—someone may well have sex on one of those statues.
The Past is Present, The Personal is Political: City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte
Emily Nordling
Tue Nov 27, 2012 5:30pm 1 comment Favorite This
I was sold on newcomer Magnus Flyte’s recent novel when I looked at the clock and realized that I’d been reading for four hours without pause. Ironically, City of Dark Magic dedicates itself to time travel, and, what’s more, Magnus Flyte is actually a composite pseudonym for author Meg Howrey, and television writer and journalist Christina Lynch. If there’s anything this novel taught me, it’s that two people can be one and that present time is all the time.
If you’re not sold on that description, here’s one from the back cover of the novel: “Rom-com paranormal suspense novel.” When music student Sarah Weston is called to Prague to study dusty Beethoven manuscripts and instead discovers political intrigue, love, and time-bending hallucinogens, Flyte’s readers are left with their own discovery: meta-fiction can be fun and rom-coms can, indeed, be smart, sexy, and self-aware.
Sarah Weston does, it turns out, spend a portion of the novel studying dusty Beethoven manuscripts. Upon the supposed suicide of her friend and mentor, Dr. Absalom Sherbatsky, Sarah takes over his work at Prague Castle’s upcoming collection of royal treasures. Prince Maximilian Lobkowitz Anderson, the current heir, has at last retrieved his family’s possessions from the time of communist upheaval and, before that, Nazi takeover. The Lobkowitz stronghold now overfloweth with historical artifacts and an ensemble cast of ecstatic, eclectic academics. Even before Sarah begins to suspect that Sherbatsky might have been murdered—throwing her into her role as “Renaissance Nancy Drew”—her surroundings are in a state of contemporary and historical chaos.
Upon investigation, Sarah finds that Sherbatsky had been high in more than one manner when he threw himself from a castle window to his death. And, when undertaking Beethoven (alternatively, LVB or Luigi)-related research in a seemingly deserted library at Nelahozeves, she finds that Prince Max might be partaking in recreational drug use himself. When, after apologizing for his attempts to extinguish invisible flames on Sarah’s body, the two find a dead body on the grounds of the castle, an alliance is inevitably, though tentatively, formed. Not until Sarah makes the bold, if stupid decision, to eat the thing-that-looks-like-a-toenail left to her by Sherbatsky, does she realize that the drug that’s all the rage in Prague Castle is not quite what it seems.
At our highest, most tangible moments of energy or emotion, Prince Max explains, we leave traces or imprints on our surroundings. These traces are invisible to the naked eye, but when our glial cells are affected, our awareness of energy—and in this case, time—expands. Sherbatsky, Max, and now Sarah, have been, for all intents and purposes, time traveling. Sarah’s mysterious guide, Nicolas Pertusato, even went so far as to become stuck in time—a messy product of Tyco Brahe’s willingness to test the new drug on “his” dwarf, Jepp, in the 16th century.
While City of Dark Magic’s protagonists dabble in time travel, hang out with LVB and famous historical alchemists, and begin to search for the Golden Fleece (yes, that Golden Fleece), the contemporary world rages on. US Senator Charlotte Yates plots to retrieve old letters from Prague Castle that would prove her engagement with the KGB and erase her chance at the presidency. Murders are committed, threats are made, and child prodigies run rampant. The climax of the novel occurs, fittingly, in the midst of a historical costume ball and at the opening ceremonies for the Lobkowicz collection—successfully marrying past to present, metaphysical to physical, and politics to art.
Howrey and Lynch have presented us with a heavily meta-fictional comedy. Not only does each event within the story tie to its historical precedent—both figuratively and, thanks to Tyco Brahe, physically—the constant allusions to artistic and historical preservation bombard the novel’s audience with its own importance. When Sarah asks an art historian what a dog in a painting symbolizes, she is told, “De dog is just a dog.” But a dog, it turns out, is never just a dog—they represent a given person’s character throughout the novel, and often, though covertly, move along the action. And yes, there are more dogs abound than in most novels about time travel in Prague, but, we find, a dog is never just a dog—just as a book is never just a book, and an artifact is never just an artifact. In turns both brilliant and heavy-handed, Howrey and Lynch ensure that every object and character contain unprecedented importance at some point in the novel. Every dog, so they say, has its day. Preservation and documentation—even novel-writing—become vital.
If humanity has the potential to exist on all historical planes at once, it obtains that ability through scholarship, and through recognizing the similarities, as Sarah does, of every historical moment. And what better setting for such a theme than Prague? By juxtaposing Renaissance torture scenes, Nazism, Soviet communism, and present-day politics, City of Dark Magic successfully presents its political themes alongside its artistic standards.
But, even on the matter of entertainment, the novel succeeds. We are not bogged down with academic mumbo-jumbo as my review might imply, nor are the novel’s twists particularly mind-boggling. Sarah is a believable and adventurous protagonist, and she and her companions are diverse, brilliant, and maddening. The action is swift and the plot tantalizing. If you find yourself bored by chatter about old Czechoslovakian statuary, just wait—someone may well have sex on one of those statues. Similarly, if you are concerned that Prince Max will leave Sarah in the dust in an attempt to “protect” her, fear not, because Sarah is quick on the scent of bullshit; And if your worry, like mine at the novel’s onset, is that Sarah will end up as Beethoven’s famed “Immoral Beloved,” you can rest easy knowing that Howrey and Lynch are not nearly so trite.
Rookie author “Magnus Flyte” fails only in the manner of most writers concerned with tying every end of every thread. Their epilogue is boring, if only in comparison to the novel at large. It is, however, very much worth the journey.
QUOTE:
Howrey and Lynch have succeeded in capturing the essence of the world’s most gloriously emo city. Despite its often kludgy plot mechanics, the Prague of City of Dark Magic never fails to shimmer exotically, erotically, on the page. And that’s all to the good, because the appeal of this particular breed of urban fantasy lies in its dark, insinuating mood. In these books, at least, a palpable sense of mystery matters a hell of a lot more than a mystery that makes sense.
Prague Rocks
A fantastical adventure set in the world’s most emo city.
By Glen Weldon
1212_SBR_CITYDARK_ILLO
Illustration by Lilli Carré.
The foreign city you have not yet visited glitters in your imagination with the ghost-light of the uncanny. It floats before you, wreathed in a fairy glamour cast by travel magazines, half-remembered spy novels, and drunken stories someone’s roommate told you once at a dinner party. You see yourself strolling confidently through spice markets ablaze with color, or blithely navigating labyrinthine cobblestone streets, or flirting over a cloying Muscat with a pliant, sloe-eyed local who grows his own, say, pomegranates or whatever.
Maybe he’s a cheesemonger. Or a fishmonger. Anyway: He mongs, is the point. Sexily.
But then, one day, you finally arrive in the longed-for city, only to realize that you have brought with you the flat gray fussiness of everyday life. You can’t help it; we all exude mundanity from our pores like so much sebum. In its presence, the eagerly anticipated riot of new ideas and experiences that enticed you to the place dissolves into a prosaic succession of ghastly toilets and transportation strikes and sore feet. For this is the grim secret of travel: We ache for Wallace Stevens, but we find only, always, Rick Steves.
A growing number of novels seek to erect fanciful bulwarks against the dull logistical deluge of the real world. Their action takes place against cityscapes so steeped in shadowy, gas-lit mystique the reader practically asphyxiates. In these books, every alleyway hides danger, or sex, or the paranormal—maybe even dangerous paranormal sex. The skylines that loom in silhouette on their dust jackets belong to a mythic past devoid of construction cranes and preservation scaffolding; in their pages, history isn’t something found on a plaque erected by the tourist board, it permeates the very air like a heady, sickly-sweet perfume. To read these novels is to finally and happily tread the literally magical streets of cities that will only ever exist in our naïve imaginings.
The officious yet sinister London of China Mieville, Neal Gaiman, Jonathan Barnes, and Mark Hodder; the tense, swollen Istanbul of Ian McDonald; Emma Bull’s faerie-haunted Minneapolis, Rob Thurman’s monstrous New York City, Laurell K. Hamilton’s matter-of-factly supernatural St. Louis: None of them exist, yet all of them are real. To this almanac add the Prague of City of Dark Magic, by Magnus Flyte.
1212_SBR_CITYDARK_COVER
Or rather, “Magnus Flyte.” Because like the titular Prague in which he sets his tale—a campily doom-shrouded city perched, we are told, at the thin threshold separating capital-G Good from capitals-U-and-E Unspeakable Evil—Magnus Flyte doesn’t exist. He’s the pseudonym of novelist Meg Howrey (Blind Sight, The Cranes Dance) and television writer Christina Lynch (Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, and, most crucially, the 2004 reunion special Growing Pains: The Return of the Seavers).
Sarah, the novel’s hero, is a brilliant and beautiful music student who finds herself drawn into the requisite web of intrigue when she receives the customary mysterious invitation—in this case, to spend the summer archiving Beethoven’s personal papers for a noble Prague family’s soon-to-open museum.
There, she will encounter a romantic interest whose nose will be dependably aquiline. She will stumble dutifully through secret passages in Prague Castle. She will uncover a deadly conspiracy that involves the CIA, the cursed Crown Jewels of Bohemia, a drug that grants extrasensory (well, extra-temporal, technically) powers, and a wise-cracking, possibly immortal dwarf so clearly written to be played by Peter Dinklage in the movie you expect to see shout-outs to his agent and manager in the acknowledgements.
If the relentless tidal churn of the book’s plotting flattens characters into broad types and serves to keep their motivations fuzzy from scene to scene, such that they do things we don’t understand for reasons we can’t reliably guess, well—that’s sort of the point. We enter into a book like this the same way we enter into a foreign city for the first time, hoping to get swept up. Thus, we don’t merely forgive a certain amount of authorial misdirection—we demand it. We long to surrender control and find ourselves beguiled, led by our stubbornly nonaquilinear noses through sudden twists and surprising reveals.
And while we’re at it, we want a larger-than-life villain deserving of our hatred; a broad, stereotypical antagonist is perfectly fine with us, thank you very much, as long as it’s someone who’s well and truly hiss-worthy. Happily, Howrey and Lynch’s villain is a hilariously venal and manipulative female U.S. senator just a few heartbeats away from the presidency, whom they depict with great relish if less-than-great subtlety. (“She took a calming moment to visualize the entire Arab world as a giant parking lot. Lovely.”)
Over the course of nearly 450 pages, the book’s steady accretion of MacGuffins (Wait, we think, we’re searching for a key now? Weren’t we just looking for a crystal vial like, three pages ago?) serves to leach from its prose the nimbleness that marks its promising early chapters. But even as the narrative detritus of keys, vials, cloaks, letters, journals and copper noses (long story) piles up, there is always their Prague—which is to say, “Prague”: a glowering, haunted, sexually charged city, its every spire, archway, side street and dungeon captured not accurately but perfectly.
Because of course the real work of the urban fantasist is to evoke the urban but live in the fantastic. There is a city beneath and beyond this city, they say to us, a surreal, ur-real existence that operates not on bus timetables and bank hours but on the emotional logic of the subconscious.
In these imaginary cities, writers avail themselves of myths and symbols to explore and expose the City—the perverse human impulse to crowd together despite our hard-wired hunger for privacy. They find and delineate the components that make up a given city’s collective, yet distinct and idiosyncratic, personality. And thankfully, in the process, they make a lot of crazy shit happen.
"Magnus Flyte," or authors Christina Lynch and Meg Howrey.
Christina Lynch and Meg Howrey.
Photo by Travis Tanner.
Let that be our metric, then, and let’s stipulate that Howrey and Lynch have succeeded in capturing the essence of the world’s most gloriously emo city. Despite its often kludgy plot mechanics, the Prague of City of Dark Magic never fails to shimmer exotically, erotically, on the page. And that’s all to the good, because the appeal of this particular breed of urban fantasy lies in its dark, insinuating mood. In these books, at least, a palpable sense of mystery matters a hell of a lot more than a mystery that makes sense.
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City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte. Penguin.
Review: City of Lost Dreams (City of Dark Magic #2) by Magnus Flyte
Vienna and Prague are world renowned as cities full of music and the arts….and maybe even a little magic. It is here in the magical city of Vienna that we find musicologist Sarah Weston.
Sarah lives in a world where alchemy, science, and magic all exist together and create a wonderfully rich story….not to mention you throw in all the time travel through the beautiful streets of Prague and Vienna and you have a lyrical read!
Sarah is in Vienna looking for a cure for her friend Pollina who is on death’s door while her other friends, Max and Nico are also searching for a cure.
Nico is looking for an ancient alchemy cure in England when he finds that an old rival is one step ahead of him. Max is in Prague also searching for a cure but he is also trying to figure out the reappearance of a long dead saint.
While the boys are off, Sarah becomes entangled in a deadly web of secrets, lies, stolen art, and a dangerously attractive horseman who’s more than a little bloodthirsty.
But nothing will be more dangerous than the brilliant and vindictive villain who seeks to bend time itself. Sarah must travel deep into an ancient mystery to save the people she loves.
I think the summary on the back of the book describes this book nicely. As a reader you are getting exactly what is described–a thrilling fantasy read with action and mystery.
Unlike many, I have not read the first book in the series, City of Dark Magic so I was a little lost in this book. From what I gather from the reviews of CODM, is that it’s a little more action packed with a lot going on….this book had some momentum and flowed nicely but I don’t know that I was flying through it.
It took me a while to sort out the characters, what was happening, and some of the other fantasy elements. My ability to navigate the novel is in no way the fault of the author, I just felt like I should have read CODM first before this novel. I felt out of sorts and a little behind on everything. So I can whole-heartedly say that this is not a stand alone novel, I highly recommend reading the first book in the series.
I liked Sarah’s character enough. She seems very self possessed and very much in-tune with her sexuality which I really liked. She seemed like she was a woman who knew what she wanted. She’s a natural skeptic which I am always a fan of, so I respected and admired her character.
The supporting characters were fun….a little cliche but overall I like them all. I wish Max and Sarah had been together more, it seemed like they had a lot of chemistry and when they were together it felt right. I wanted there to be more excitement between the two.
There was a lot of sensual sexual encounters so be prepared for some heat. I thought the sex scenes were tastefully done and appropriate….for some it might be a little much but for me personally I felt as though they were well written–steamy but not crass.
I loved the time travel elements! It’s always a challenge to write a novel set in two distinct time periods but I thought Flyte did a great joy illustrating the streets of old Prague and Vienna. After reading this novel I totally want to visit these wondrous cities!
This is a novel offers a nice escape from some of the heavier literature I’ve been reading lately. This was a nice, fun, frivolously indulgent read! Flyte does a great job explaining how the time travel works so I didn’t have to ‘over think’ it.
I wanted to say that I loved loved loved the novel but I just couldn’t get past how lost I was. I think the novel as a whole would have been a little more enjoyable had I read the first novel. I think I will now read the first novel and then go back and re-read this one.
If you have read the first book in the series, I think you will enjoy this follow up, but do not try and start the series at the mid way point.
Fantasy and history blended together seamlessly in this book. There was a lot of adventure and mystery in this novel along with some romance, so it essentially has a little something for everyone!
QUOTE:
gracefully written debut, as effervescent as spumante, Lynch dramatizes the allure and power of secrets—in politics and marriage—while depicting with sly humor the collision between American do-gooder naïveté and Italian culture.
Library Journal
LJ Reviews 2017 November #1
In 1956, with Cold War hysteria in the air, newlyweds Michael and Scottie Messina arrive in Siena, Italy. Michael has been recruited by the CIA to stop the Communists from winning the mayor's race. Scottie just wants to be a good wife, without knowing exactly what that means. As a result of Michael's suspect sexuality (it was illegal at the time for gay individuals to work for the U.S. government) and a pregnant Scottie's attraction to other men, their carefree life turns first confusing and then dangerous. As Michael bumbles into dirty tricks, false-flag operations, and the caching of weapons, all in an attempt to impress both his gay handler and Clare Boothe Luce, the U.S. ambassador to Italy, Scottie is ensnared by flirtatious lovers, the Palio (Siena's famous horse race), and her husband's spying. Will the secrets the two innocents abroad fail to reveal to each other destroy not only their marriage but the lives of others as well? VERDICT In her gracefully written debut, as effervescent as spumante, Lynch dramatizes the allure and power of secrets—in politics and marriage—while depicting with sly humor the collision between American do-gooder naïveté and Italian culture. Italophiles and anyone interested in spying and the expat experience (think Chris Pavone's The Expats) will love the spot-on social commentary.—Ron Terpening, formerly of Univ. of Arizona, Tucson
REVIEW: THE ITALIAN PARTY BY CHRISTINA LYNCH
Title: The Italian Party
Author: Christina Lynch
Published: March 2018, St. Martin's Press
Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
Source: Publisher
Summary:
A delicious and sharply funny page-turner about "innocent" Americans abroad in 1950s Siena, Italy. Newly married, Scottie and Michael are seduced by Tuscany's famous beauty. But the secrets they are keeping from each other force them beneath the splendid surface to a more complex view of ltaly, America and each other.
When Scottie's Italian teacher--a teenager with secrets of his own--disappears, her search for him leads her to discover other, darker truths about herself, her husband and her country. Michael's dedication to saving the world from communism crumbles as he begins to see that he is a pawn in a much different game. Driven apart by lies, Michael and Scottie must find their way through a maze of history, memory, hate and love to a new kind of complicated truth.
Half glamorous fun, half an examination of America's role in the world, and filled with sun-dappled pasta lunches, Prosecco, charming spies and horse racing, The Italian Party is a smart pleasure.
My thoughts: Sometimes I have to admit, I'm a sucker for a good cover...and this cover completely won me over. I was drawn to it, plus the title helped...and you know what - this book was just a good, fun read, full of intrigue and secrets and had me longing for more Prosecco than just the little bottle I bought for my Instagram photo (see below)!
I loved the way this book was set up, each chapter broken into little segments that alternated between Scottie and Michael's points of view. This really allowed us to get to know them and right away you find out they are keeping secrets from each other - well, consider me hooked! This newlywed couple has just moved to Siena, Italy, so Michael can open a business. It turns out, that is just a front for what he is really there to do, unbeknownst to his wife.
I fully admit, politics is not usually my area of interest, nor is pure history, but I really enjoyed this book. I found the way the story was told, with the good doses of humor and loads of references to food - OMG was I ever hungry while reading this! - to help tame the political references of communism and the upcoming election kept me engaged and things from being too heavy. I really had no idea that the US had any dealings in Italy and their elections - as I am assuming this is based in part in truth.
For a debut novel, this one had me captivated and engaged throughout. I found it fun and lively - those characters certainly made for some entertaining reading for sure! I will definitely be keeping an eye out for what comes next from Christina Lynch!