Newt

Regency for the younger and/or sillier crowd.

Of course Garth Nix is a solid writer. You might have heard of the Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen books of the Old Kingdom series or maybe even the Keys to the Kingdom series that begins with Mister Monday and continues on through the week. All good books, but very different from Newt. In fact, if you look on Garth Nix’s website, you’ll only find one book under his “Fantasy Romance” section. And this is it.

On her eighteenth birthday, Lady Truthful is due to inherit the family heirloom: a magical emerald. Only problem is, when they bring it out to look at it, the gem is stolen. When her father is taken ill and her cousins are suddenly rendered not-sensible in their approaches to handling the problem, Lady Truthful–or Newt, as she is know to her family–must seek help from her magical aunt (and a magical mustache of disguise) to search for the culprit herself.

If only that pesky, good-looking detective-ish government agent with a mysterious secret of his own would quit trying to help. Or maybe she’s fine with him helping. But of course, her own secrets might be a problem at this point…

What I love about the book is that it unabashedly embraces all of the regency and adventure tropes with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. There might be a rejected proposal somewhere in this book, but it’s a little bit hard to take it too seriously. On the other hand, the characters are likably imperfect the whole time. And you have to love a powerfully magical great aunt who boosts her thinking power by wearing a magical fez.

This is a perfect book for a lazy Saturday morning or a road trip audio book.