Witchmark

Witchmark is set in Aeland, a country modeled on Edwardian England that is recovering from a war with its neighbor Laneer, a war much like the First World War. In Aeland magic is a privilege of the ruling class and a crime for everyone else: the storm singers of the great families control the weather, while anyone else found with magic is locked away in an asylum. Miles Singer is a doctor in a veterans' hospital. His real name is Christopher Hensley, and he was born into one of those great families, destined to be a secondary, a living reservoir of power that his sister Grace would draw on. He ran away to the army instead and hides his gift for healing.

A charming stranger, Tristan Hunter, brings a dying man named Nick Elliot to the hospital, and the two set out to learn who poisoned him. The investigation pulls Miles back toward the family he fled, and Grace binds him as her secondary against his will. Meanwhile veterans across the country are turning on their own families, and Tristan, who turns out to be one of the Amaranthine, a fae people, wants to know why the souls of Aeland's dead are not reaching the afterlife. The answers lead back to the asylums: imprisoned witches are being used to turn the souls of Aeland's dead into aether, the power that runs the country, the veterans are possessed by the ghosts of dead Laneeri soldiers, and Miles's father ordered Nick's death to keep it all hidden. In the end Grace releases Miles, he heals the possessed veterans, and he and Tristan are engaged.

This is a short, quick book, part murder mystery, part political thriller and part slow romance, and Polk does not stop to explain the world; you pick it up as you go. Publishers Weekly called it a "stellar debut" and admired how naturally the mythology unfolds. It suits readers of Downton Abbey who want magic in it, or of K. J. Charles's romances.