A Sleight of Shadows Returns Readers to Kat Howard’s Unseen World

It’s been six years since Kat Howard’s An Unkindness of Magicians was released, and many readers had likely assumed that novel (with its fairly conclusive, albeit bittersweet ending) was the end of the story of the Unseen World. The arrival of sequel A Sleight of Shadows feels like a welcome gift, and although it never quite reaches the heights of its predecessor—let’s not kid ourselves, An Unkindness of Magicians is honestly just excellent—it’s an enjoyable enough journey that gives us greater insight into the first book’s most memorable character.
Of course, releasing a sequel after so many years have passed comes with its own unique set of challenges—readers and critics may well have forgotten the characters and events of the first novel, and the stakes of the world Howard created no longer feel as immediate as they probably once did. But for those who enjoy when their fantasy looks a little more like the contemporary world we inhabit than a far-off realm with brand new social and political hierarchies to unravel, Howard’s Unseen World still has plenty to offer.
New POVs are introduced, including a local teen who’s only just discovered her magical abilities and the cruel head of House Morgan, whose fury at being denied an easy path to access the power she sees as her due makes for an intriguing new angle with which to enter this story. But its more limited scope may frustrate some readers who were hoping for a more expansive follow-up. (Or, who, for whatever reason didn’t particularly like Sydney, as it is her rage and grief that powers the bulk of this sequel.)
A Sleight of Shadows picks up almost immediately following the end of An Unkindness of Magicians. The Unseen World is reeling in the wake of the Turning that put House Propero in charge and changed the way magic is accessed by any magician that seeks to use it. Sydney, former champion of the newly founded House Laurence, feels lost and isolated without her magic and does daily exercises in an attempt to coax (or force) some portion of her power into reappearing. Laurence himself is opening a school for those who possess magic but have never been formally part of the Unseen World, in an attempt to forge an easier path for those who are now as he once was. And Grace, the new Head of House Prospero and therefore the Unseen World entire, is attempting to balance the shifting needs of a system that, at its heart, is based on corruption and exploitation.
This sequel is more compact, narratively speaking, than its predecessor, and more focused on Sydney’s emotional journey. To a certain degree, this makes sense, given that its precipitating action is inextricably tied up with the fact that she lost her magic at the end of the first book. As she tries to adjust to a life without the power she’s always relied on, she must find a way to stop the slow return of the House of Shadows without the gift that allowed her to dismantle it in the first place.