The Sorcery Hall Trilogy

Series · 3 books · 1985-1989

By Suzy McKee Charnas

Books in series

The Bronze King

1985

Weird things began to happen, Tina noticed, right after the explosion in the subway. Stuff was disappearingY\_ordinary things like the closet doorknob and Tina's best sneakers, highly improbable ones like the kitchen linoleum, and most amazing of all, the great bronze statue of King Jagiello in Central Park.The three punky guys who kept turning up, with their chains and wrist straps and jackets lettered Prince of Darkness across the back, were obviously part of the terror. But it wasn't until Tina met the old street fiddler Paavo that she understood the menace that threatened the city and her own role in the terrifying struggle that lay ahead as an evil power from another dimension challenged her world.Here is a brilliant and compelling fantasy, which builds irresistibly from its everyday beginnings at a subway station on Manhattan's West Side to an epic battle in Central Park. Music and magic conspire together as Tina, her new friend Joel, and the ancient wizard Paavo join forces to defeat an awesome enemy.The Valentine Marsh Series: THE BRONZE KING, THE SILVER GLOVE, THE GOLDEN THREADSuzy McKee Charnas is a multiple award-winning YA and fantasy author.

The Silver Glove

1988

Fourteen-year-old Valentine Marsh has always known about her grandmother's remarkable magic powers. Val hasn't let her belief in Granny Gran's sorcery affect her everyday life at home and school, until the day she receives a phone call and a magic silver glove from her grandmother that brings her two worlds together with a crash. A powerful wizard has come to Earth to steal human souls, and Gran has been chosen to defeat him. Val can't believe that the wizard is actually masquerading as smooth-talking Dr. Brightner, her new school psychologist. But when her mother becomes a pawn in his deadly scheme, Val finds the courage to join Gran's fight. Together, armed with magic and the illuminating power of love, they face Brightner's seductive and dangerous illusions. Guided by instinct and urged on by fear, Val uses the silver glove to aid her in her mission—a mission to save not only her family but even the world from the forces of doom.

The Golden Thread

1989

Magic is nothing unusual to Valentine Marsh. But when she and her friends join hands to make a wish on New Year's Eve, even Val marvels at the ring of energy and light they mysteriously create. Since her magical grandmother is lying near death in a hospital, Val can only assume that this power of the Comet Committee, as they come to call themselves, is her own. When Val is assigned to host foreign exchange student Bosanka Lonat at school, the Comet Committee's purpose becomes clear to her. Bosanka has come to America in search of her estranged relatives, and she believes that the Committee has the power to reunite them. Disturbing things begin to happen, and Val suspects that she's dealing, not with a typical European teenager, but with someone who is capable of great evil. Together with Joel, Barb, and Lennie, Val tests her courage and magical powers to fight against the terrifying tragedy that faces them all.

Author

Suzy McKee Charnas

Author · 15 books

Suzy McKee Charnas, a native New Yorker raised and educated in Manhattan, surfaced as an author with WALK TO THE END OF THE WORLD (1974), a no-punches-pulled feminist SF novel and Campbell award finalist. The three further books that sprang from WALK (comprising a futurist, feminist epic about how people make history and create myth) closed in 1999 with THE CONQUEROR’S CHILD, a Tiptree winner (as is the series in its entirety). Meanwhile, she taught for two years in Nigeria with the Peace Corps, married, and moved to New Mexico, where she has lived, taught, and written fiction and non-fiction for forty five years. She teaches SF from time to time, and travels every year to genre conventions around the country and (occasionally) around the world. Her varied SF and fantasy works have also won the Hugo award, the Nebula award, the Gigamesh Award (Spain), and the Mythopoeic award for Young-Adult fantasy. A play based on her novel THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY has been staged on both coasts. STAGESTRUCK VAMPIRES (Tachyon Books) collects her best short fiction, plus essays on writing feminist SF and on seeing her play script first become a professionally staged drama in San Francisco. Currently, she’s working at getting all of her work out in e-book, audio, and other formats, and moving several decades’ worth of manuscripts, correspondence, etc. out of a slightly leaky garage and sent off to be archived at the University of Oregon Special Collections. She has two cats and a gentleman boarder (also a cat), good friends and colleagues, ideas for new work, and travel plans for the future.