STRANGE MAGIC

Vic James brings The Dark Arts Trilogy to a close with Bright Ruin

Described as “Downton Abbey meets Game Of Thrones in a world where Voldemort won,” Vic James’s The Dark Arts Trilogy takes place in a Britain where commoners serve as slaves to the magically-skilled aristocracy for a decade. As a documentary maker who has worked for the BBC and Channel 4, the novels were inspired by James’s day job.

“I’d been producing a series called The Super-Rich And Us, about how the wealth of the 1% affects the rest of us,” she tells Red Alert. “I’d been speaking to some billionaires, and what they all had in common was never questioning that their money gave them the ability to do anything they wanted, which was almost like a form of magic.”

With James promising “magic, and more magic!” there are plenty of spells in final instalment Bright Ruin. “I always wanted the presence of magic in the books to grow across the series,” she explains. “I love that when you read Game Of Thrones, the magic is almost blink-and-you’ll miss it. The Britain of the first Dark Arts book Gilded Cage starts off looking and feeling like a grimmer version of our own. But by the end of Bright Ruin, we’ve had dragons battling in the sky over London, a magical prison break, characters crossing into other worlds, and an undying king. Also some murder, lots of treachery and one rather startling kiss!” SJ

Bright Ruin is published on 26 July.