JOURNEY INTO A FANTASY OF MANNERS AND A COMBINATION OF INTERESTS

The Ruthless Lady’s Guide To Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner

January 5, 2022

Summary

Since we share a Kindle account, we have each seen Amazon recommendations for entire genres that we have absolutely no interest in. While we both share in the joy of some sci-fi, fantasy, general fiction, and classics, we definitely have different tastes. Most who know us know that Scott is a reader of science fiction, fantasy, adventures, and light novels. Audrey reads some general fiction and a lot of LGBT romance. This wonderful book comes together as both.

The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry tells the story of a disenfranchised, young fire-witch/thief named Dellaria Wells (Delly for short) in a city called Leiscourt. When we meet Delly, she is behind on her rent and her mother’s rent and has no job and no prospects. She is in survival mode. After talking her way into a job advertised as seeking, “Female Persons, of Martial or Magical ability, to guard a Lady of some Importance, prior to the celebration of her Marriage,” she heads out on an adventure as part of an all-female team guarding a wealthy woman from unknown assassins. One of her new team members is a beautiful, wellbred half-troll woman named Winn Cynallum. Delly is immediately focused on gaining the favor of Winn, using the opportunity of what starts out as an easy job to foster the romance. 

The job turns dangerous soon enough and eventually leads the group back to Leiscourt on the hunt for a murderer and a drug cartel. Given her history with the rougher aspects of her hometown, Delly leads the group to infiltrate the cartel to find their target (and more importantly to Delly, get the reward money). As if that’s not difficult enough, Delly’s personal life has also had some action. Delly comes back to a city whose supply of the red drip (Delly’s mom’s drug of choice) is causing an unusually high frequency of overdoses. Delly also manages to deceive Winn into proposing and actually feels bad about it. 

Catching the criminals, saving Delly’s mom, avenging a murder, and redeaming her behavior toward her love interest is the expected happy ending we wanted for our protagonist. 

Review

Despite addressing some deep issues (poverty, parentification, substance abuse, education, crime, grief, social roles, love and death), the story maintains humor and optimism throughout and does not dive too deep into any of the issues. The light tone is mainly due to the whimsical dialect of our main character/narrator, Delly, and the eternal good cheer and optimism of Delly’s love interest, Winn. While this is a great way of keeping the overall tone of the story light and showing the privilege Winn grew up with, for me, it makes the character of Winn very one-dimensional. We get more depth from the character of Delly, but the main character also exactly fits the archetype of a down-on-their-luck, con-artist, poor kid from the wrong side of town. 

We love that despite being set in a pre-industrial, magical city, homophobia does not exist in this story at all. While this is not realistic, it is nice to escape reality into a world where the fact that our main character is bisexual and gets engaged to a woman has no effect on any of the other characters, though the class difference between them does cause almost all of the conflict between the two sweethearts. 

Representation 

As a lesbian romance with a bisexual main character, it obviously is welcoming of the LGBTQ+ community. Though as a bi woman, I do sense a little bi-phobia from Winn when she accuses Delly of cheating and then asks, “was it a man?” While some bisexual people do like having multiple partners, I hate seeing bi characters treated as though just because they are sexually attracted to more than one gender of romantic partners that they will always try to seek out multiple partners of different genders. 

This book also has great representation of women. It is almost a completely female cast, other than Delly’s actor friend and the creepy Mr. Buttons (an undead mouse skeleton hosting the soul of a wizard).

Race is not mentioned really at all, other than the fantasy version of race: Winn is a half-troll. This does not mean that there is no representation of other people, it just means that the reader can make assumptions about a character's physical characteristics on their own, for the most part. 

Recommendations

Anyone who wants a fairly quick historical fantasy read, should check this out. People who love lesbian romance should give it a go, as well. 

Will I read it again? 

Audrey might not pick this one back up again, but Scott likely will. Given how much he loves creating D&D characters based off of books he’s read, it is absolutely possible that our friends may see a super-strong half-troll or a fire witch in future campaigns. He has already made an mini-figure interpretation of Winn using the Hero Forge website. 

Language: 4 out of 5

The language used in this story is very interesting. Delly uses an awkward and whimsical dialect full of made up words and portmanteaus, which helps create the levity of the book and shows her lack of formal education. Overall, all of the awkwardness of the language is purposeful and written intentionally by the author. 

Story: 3 out of 5

The story was somewhat predictable, but had enough original elements to keep you captivated the majority of the time. The creative setting and unique voice of this story keep you going when the story gets a little slow. This story did exactly what it was written to do: entertain readers. It’s not going to be a story from which readers will walk away with a new perspective on life and love, but it is good escapist fiction. 

Difficulty: Somewhere between Basic and Good Challenge

This book is not at all difficult, though some readers might have a hard time with the dialect. It’s definitely part of the charm of the story, but it tripped us up at first. 

Sexiness/Spicyness Level: 2 of 5

Wholesome physical affection, getting as far as a hand on a thigh and some making out. No on-screen touching of genitals in any way, though it is implied that neither Delly nor Winn are unfamiliar with the concept. It’s more like Winn wants to woo Delly into marriage and has bought into the purity culture concept that she needs to wait because Delly is “special.”