The Splendid City [Paperback]

A genre-blending story of modern witchcraft, a police state and WTF characters, for fans of Alice Hoffman and Madeline Miller.
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In the state of Liberty, water is rationed at alarming prices, free speech is hardly without a cost, and Texas has just declared itself its own country. In this society, paranoia is well-suited because eyes and ears are all around, and they are judging. Always judging. This terrifying (and yet somehow vaguely familiar) terrain is explored via Eleanor – a young woman eagerly learning about the gifts of her magic through the support of her coven. 


But being a white witch is not as easy as they portray it in the books, and she’s already been placed under ‘house arrest’ with a letch named Stan, a co-worker who wronged her in the past and now exists in the form of a cat. A talking cat who loves craft beers, picket lines, and duping and ‘shooting’ people. 


Eleanor has no time for Stan and his shenanigans, because she finds herself helping another coven locate a missing witch which she thinks is mysteriously linked to the shortage of water in Liberty.


File Under: Fantasy  [ Liberty for All | Water is Beautiful | Eyes Everywhere | Stanning for Stan ] A sharp, lively, funny contemporary fantasy with the feel of an up-to-date, more adult version of L Frank Baum’s Oz books.
– The Guardian

Karen Heuler’s The Splendid City is a wonderful fabulation, both humorous and contemplative, about the desperate state of US politics and society. In this world without a moral center, Eleanor, a witch, and her black cat familiar, Stan, who walks on two legs and packs l³#