The Cipher: A Novel of Crosspointe by Diana Pharaoh Francis

Description:

Distant member of the royal Rampling family, Lucy Trenton's ability to detect majick has embroiled her in a dangerous intrigue that threatens her very life. Her only hope lies in her most persistent suitor, ship captain Marten Thorpe, but Lucy isn't sure she can trust him....

Review & Summary:

This is a review from Curled Up with my own comments added.
The intital entry in a series of novels about the port city of Crosspointe, The Cipher  also works completely as a stand-alone book.

Lucy Trenton, a customs official and distant cousin of the king - she calls him "Cousin William" is a loyal servant of the crown. Still, although she thinks of herself as a law-abiding citizen and looks down on anyone who dares to bend the rules, she has a few secrets, too: since childhood, she has been able to sense majick. The only one who believed her when she was a child was a mysterious stranger who scared her thoroughly. After her experience with him, she stopped telling anyone about her ability. She also collects Ciphers, majickal devices created centuries ago by an extremely powerful majickar called Errol Cipher. Touching one of them would result in the device attaching itself to the person and trying to kill him or her. Ergo, the law requires everyone to turn the Ciphers over to the crown, but Lucy stores seven of them in a vault under her house. Lucy believes that the law only has the public turn over the Ciphers so that they can be studied and dissected so that current day majickars can attempt to duplicate the majick.

As the novel begins we find Lucy returning by sea to Crosspointe in a middle of a huge storm.  Here we are introduced to Crosspointe’s majickal protection: The Pale.  A sheet of majick that is singular in its ability to  keep out the sylveth spawn, but not sylveth itself.  The Pale was created by Errol Cipher, and it has been speculated that it would fail soon, and none of the majickars knew how to fix it, or even recreate it.

As ships start to crash due to the storm, Lucy has to take control of the salvage operation as the ranking customs officer. This also means also taking care of sailors who are swept overboard and come into contact with sylveth. Sylveth is Crosspointe's blessing and curse, by itself majickal and used to craft majickal items. Unchecked, sylveth can change any living thing it touches into monsters. The changed sailors want to infect others, and so a select number of people, led by Lucy, have to kill the former humans. This is only the beginning of Lucy's nightmare. She finds another Cipher, and this time it attaches itself to her. She cannot get it off, and nobody e lse can see it. She must continue her life knowing that she is doomed.

Soon after the storm ends, and Lucy returns home a blackmailer sends her a letter. Lucy does not want to give in to him, even though the blackmailer threatens to expose her Cipher collection, which would also reflect poorly on the king and her family. When a valuable piece of bloodoak goes missing during the salvage, the owners blame Lucy. Lucy's superior has no choice but to suspend her.

Lucy's mother, meanwhile, is trying to arrange for her daughter to marry, preferably a rich man with a good standing in the society. Unwilling and partly to spite her mother, Lucy arranges a date with a captain who is rumored to both gamble and smuggle. Lucy is also attracted to the Captain, Marten Thorpe. Unfortunately, Marten has made a bet that he can get something from Lucy, something which could ruin her career forever.

Lucy is a likable point-of-view character, independent but clearly part of a large family who has to think of others over herself. Marten, the second point-of-view character, is a gambler and a scoundrel who does not realize the consequences of his actions until it is too late. On the other hand, he is also loyal to a fault and when he does realize what he has done, he tries to make up for it. The secondary characters are well-made even if none of them are especially memorable. Lucy's family and servants are likable enough, and Lucy has complex relationships with them, especially with her members of her family members. Her best friend, Sarah Nettles, is a shopkeeper to whom Lucy first goes to talk about her problems.

As the book unfolds it becomes clear that Lucy’s troubles are but a stepping stone for the master manipulator to bring down her royal family.  The mystery of her blackmailer and the accusations of theft are connected in a way to bring about the demise of the family turning this personal  drama into something larger with reaching political implications.

The world of Crosspointe is intriguing but not medieval: it has newspapers, and women seem to be as independent as men. On the other hand, many people live in poverty, and although Lucy and her family have servants to wait on them, Lucy does not seem to be especially wealthy.

The end of the novel feels a bit anti-climatic, coming about too easily for my taste.  However, the author leaves some loose ends allowing the possibility of expansion of the story. Overall this book was a fun, fast, romp, a solid 4 out of 5.