Rust in the Root

Justina Ireland, author of the visionary New York Times bestseller Dread Nation, returns with a spellbinding new historical fantasy set at the crossroads of race and power in Depression-era America. It is 1937, and Laura Ann Langston lives in an America divided—between those who work the mystical arts and those who do not. Ever since the Great Rust, a catastrophic event that blighted the arcane force called the Dynamism and threw America into disarray, the country has been rebuilding for a better future. And everyone knows the future is industry and technology, otherwise known as Mechomancy, not the traditional mystical arts. Laura disagrees. A talented young queer mage from Pennsylvania, Laura hopped a portal to New York City on her seventeenth birthday with hopes of earning her mage’s license and becoming something more than a root worker. But four months later, she’s got little to show for it other than an empty pocket and broken dreams. With nowhere else to turn, Laura applies for