Book: The Last Magician
Author: Lisa Maxwell
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Pages: 512
Pub Date: July 18th 2017
Goodreads Link: Goodreads
Where To Buy:
Book Description:
Stop the Magician.
Steal the book.
Save the future.
In modern day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic—the Mageus—live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power—and often their lives.
Esta is a talented thief, and she's been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she’s there. And all of Esta’s training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1902 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order—and the Brink—before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.
But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.
Steal the book.
Save the future.
In modern day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic—the Mageus—live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power—and often their lives.
Esta is a talented thief, and she's been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she’s there. And all of Esta’s training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1902 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order—and the Brink—before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.
But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.
Bio:
Lisa Maxwell is the author of The Last Magician, Unhooked, Sweet Unrest, and The Gathering Deep. She grew up in Akron, Ohio, and has a PhD in English. She’s worked as a teacher, scholar, editor, writer, and bookseller (at Little Professor Book Center in Alabama). When she’s not writing books, she’s a professor at a local college. She now lives near Washington, DC, with her husband and two sons. You can follow her on Twitter @LisaMaxwellYA or learn more about her upcoming books at http://lisa-maxwell.com/
Links:
Author Website: www.lisa-maxwell.com
Book Website (with special content): www.thelastmagician.com
Twitter: @LisaMaxwellYA
Instagram: @LisaMaxwell13
~~~~~~ The Last Magician—My Writing Process ~~~~~~
I wrote my first three books fast, in a flurry of words that took a month or so to churn out. Then I took the time to revise them for plot, character, consistency. UNHOOKED took a lot of revision, in part because I wrote the first version for NaNoWriMo and the first draft was a hot mess. Even after UNHOOKED sold, the revisions on it were intensive, mostly because I hadn’t really done a ton of world building before I wrote it. I had to go back through and make the world have a natural logic and consistency. But revising UNHOOKED taught me to write more with craft in mind, and many of the techniques I learned revising on my own and then later with my editor were techniques that I used on THE LAST MAGICIAN. I started THE LAST MAGICIAN with more brainstorming and world building than I’d ever done before. I laid out the magic system and, most importantly, laid out the details of the plot. When I pitched the book to my editor, I had a 10+ page (single-spaced) synopsis that laid out every twist and turn in the book. You would think that with all that planning, with knowing exactly what needed to happen, that THE LAST MAGICIAN would have been a joy to write. Nope. The book made me work for it, that’s for sure. I started drafting in August of 2015. By December, I had the bones of the book, but it fought me the entire way to get that first draft. I usually draft in Word. I have no idea what it is, but I can’t seem to write in anything else. It doesn’t even make logical sense, but I freeze up in Pages or Scrivener, but with Word, I can just write. I usually write in one long document and I leave it single-spaced, so I can see as many words on the screen as possible. Once I had the bulk of my draft done, and I’d therefore realized that the book was not going to be the dual POV that I’d planned, but something much bigger and more complicated, I plugged the whole thing into Scrivener. I don’t write in Scrivener, but I love using it for revision. Because it allows you to make separate folders and documents for each chapter and scene, it was really convenient to move things around, change the POV of a chapter, or just play with the larger structure until I got it right. I also use spreadsheets to edit. Once I have what I think is a good, solid draft, I print out the entire thing and then I go through the hard copy, page-by- page, making notes. As I read, I reverse-outline the whole book into a spreadsheet, so I can see where each of the scenes are, how long each chapter is, and what the plot beats are for each chapter. Forcing myself to reverse-outline the book in a spreadsheet means that I can more easily see when the story is not keeping up with the pace it needs to. I can see where chapters are dragging and where I’m missing major emotional beats in the story.
The spreadsheet also allows me to better track the world building. I can list when a character is introduced or when a fact is revealed, and I can see if I’m using multiple scenes for the same purpose—and get rid of them. Once I have a really solid version of the book, off it goes to Beta readers and I use their feedback to make sure I’m not missing anything important. I don’t really have Critique Partners that I exchange pages or chapters with. Instead, I have a few people I really trust to read the book and give me big-picture issues. Strangely enough, my non-fiction- reading husband is always one of my first and best readers. If he can get through the book and like it, I know I’m on the right track. The rest of my writing process has a lot to do with revision. THE LAST MAGICIAN went through multiple rounds of revision with my first editor. Then he left the publisher and my new editor had some bigger issues she wanted to work on, so we went at it all over again and the book changed even more. I’d love to say that this is a magic formula for writing, but I’ve found that every book needs to be written in its own way. I wrote a lot of THE LAST MAGICIAN at home in my dark bedroom listening to Chris Cornell’s Higher Truth album. I worked from a really detailed synopsis. For the sequel, I’ve found I can only work on it outside of my house. I have a loose outline of where I think it’s going and a general idea of the end…and the rest is a mystery. But once it’s drafted, I’ll still go through the process of printing it out, slowing myself down, and analyzing it structurally. That’s not how I wrote my first book. It’s probably not how I’ll write my last book. I think, though, that the most important thing about writing and any writer’s process is to let it take the shape it needs to take, so you can balance creativity and storytelling with the craft of the novel. Thanks so much for reading! If you have any questions about craft or the writing process, I’d be
happy to answer them!
~~~~~ There Are Two Giveaways! ~~~~~
(Tour Wide Giveaway): One (1) winner will receive a signed copy of The Last Magician along with a swag pack and other exclusive goodies.
(Just For My Blog Giveaway): One (1) winner will receive a The Last Magician swag pack courtesy of the author
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Born in 1968, I discovered fishing shortly after walking, a boon, considering I lived in South Florida. After a brief move to Kentucky, my family trekked back to the Sunshine State. I had the good fortune to attend high school in idyllic upstate New York, where I learned about a mythical substance known as “Seasons”. After two or three failed attempts at college, I bought a bar. That was fun because I love beer, but, then, I eventually met someone smarter than me (a common event), and, in this case, she married me and convinced me to go back to school–which I did, with enthusiasm. I earned a Master’s Degree in History and rediscovered my love for writing. My novels explore dark fantasy, immortality, and the nature of love as we know it. I live near Nashville, Tennessee, with the aforementioned wife, son, and herd, and, when I’m not writing, I teach history, grow wildly enthusiastic tomato plants, and restore my 1967 Mustang.
Julia Whelan has appeared in many films and television series, most notably ABC’s Once And Again. After receiving a degree in English and Creative Writing at Middlebury College and Oxford University, Julia began narrating audiobooks. She’s recorded hundreds of novels across all genres and has received multiple Earphones and Audie Awards. She is repeatedly named one of Audiofile Magazine’s Best Voices and was Audible’s Narrator of the Year.
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