The Magician's Daughter

Biddy was shipwrecked as a baby and has grown up on Hy-Brasil, a legendary island hidden off the Irish coast. The magician Rowan raised her there, and he has never allowed her to visit the mainland. With her seventeenth birthday approaching, she resents that rule.

Then Rowan fails to return from one of his secretive nightly absences. Biddy goes into his nightmares to look for him, and there she learns where he has really been going. She also learns the truth about the last days of magic, which drove him into hiding.

The story takes place in 1912 and moves between Hy-Brasil and London. Biddy leaves the only home she has known in order to protect the people she loves. As she goes, she uncovers why magic is vanishing from the world.

This is historical fantasy and a coming-of-age story, built around a found family. The fading of magic stands in for industrialization and loss. The prose has an atmospheric, fairy-tale feel, and the mood is closer to wonder and melancholy than to action.