“When the king comes home.” That’s what they say in the land of Aravis. When the king comes home, all wishes will be granted. All dreams will be made real. All will be well in the land. That’s what they say. The king in question is Good King Julian, missing and presumed dead for over two centuries and counting.

The throne is powerless; the true power rests with the Prince Bishop. When the king comes home, he’ll make it all right.

Hail Rosmer is a young woman, a would-be artist obsessed with the works of the legendary Maspero, a contemporary of King Julian who designed the city walls of Aravis, and the king’s crown. Studying under Madame Carrera, one of the great artists of the day, Hail dedicates herself to mastering her talents, surpassing her teacher, and matching Maspero’s own skills. All she has to do is live up to the exacting demands of Madame Carrera, continue to get along with her fellow apprentices, deal with the handsome young members of the guard who come to the studio to act as models, and continue her secretive and even illicit research into Maspero’s life and legend.

But she makes a mistake when she makes a copy of one of Maspero’s greatest works, purely as an intellectual exercise. Accused of counterfeiting, she has to flee the city before she can be arrested or worse. And as she abandons her life in the city and makes her way back towards the remote village of her birth, Hail Rosmer makes a discovery to change her life, and the very fabric of the nation. A scruffy, ill-dressed, ragged old beggar. Who’s the spitting image of King Julian.

When the king comes home….

The adventures that ensue are mindboggling and fantastical. The beggar turns out to be a man thrust two hundred years into the future through unknown sorceries. A man irrevocably, inexplicably, tied to Hail Rosmer.

The Prince-Bishop isn’t pleased by this at all. Not just because his position is threatened, but because there’s someone out there, a mysterious sorceress with the power to control the dead, to animate and influence legends from long ago. To perhaps place them as figureheads of an army, and take Aravis for her own.

Now it’s up to Hail Rosmer, the beggar, Hail’s friends, and the faded writings of the famous Maspero, to save the kingdom. To recast the crown, to strengthen the walls, to recreate the bond between king and land, and to thwart the evil designs which would bring war to Aravis. They’ll discover what mystical secrets tie together Hail, Julian, beggar, Julian’s long-dead wife, Queen Andred, and the evil sorceress. And in the process, Hail will discover the depths of her talents, and step away from Maspero’s shadow and into her own light.

When the king comes home ….

This is a coming of age fantasy, an epic tale of Renaissance-style culture, a story of love, magic, and obsession, and a charming exploration of desires mixed with deception. It’s a world that could have been our own, a land Leonardo or Michelangelo would have recognized, and a culture that can only inspire greatness.

It’s well-grounded in the realities of Hail’s life and thoughts, but still manages to capture a certain wide-sweeping sense of infinite possibilities. Magic has rules, and art has rules, and when they collide, anything can happen.

This was a fun read, much like Stevermer’s previous book, A College of Magics. The characters are believable and captivating, and the story never really loses track of where it’s going. On some levels, it reads like a young adult fantasy, but on other levels, it’s as complex as any ‘real’ fantasy. Pick this book up to see why Emma Bull says it ‘delivers you to the deepest of mysteries’ and Ellen Kushner says it’s ‘the best fantasy I’ve read in ages!’ I wholly agree.