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Margolyam
Orphaned at twelve, Margolyam leaves the port city of Golathreon to live with her aunt Oleadora, a sorceress and healer in the inland market town of Keddrick. But her new life brings out qualities in the girl that she never knew she possessed, and Margolyam begins a journey of self-discovery that will plunge her into the world of wizardry, with all it manifold wonders and dire perils.
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Published March 24, 2025
About the author
Matthew Hughes
200 books286 followersBorn in Liverpool, his family moved to Canada when he was five years old. Married since late 1960s, he has three grown sons. He is currently relocated to Britain. He is a former director of the Federation of British Columbia Writers.
A university drop-out from a working poor background, he worked in a factory that made school desks, drove a grocery delivery truck, was night janitor in a GM dealership, and did a short stint as an orderly in a private mental hospital. As a teenager, he served a year as a volunteer with the Company of Young Canadians.
He has made his living as a writer all of his adult life, first as a journalist in newspapers, then as a staff speechwriter to the Canadian Ministers of Justice and Environment, and, since 1979, as a freelance corporate and political speechwriter in British Columbia.
His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s, Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Postscripts, Interzone, and a number of "Year’s Best" anthologies. Night Shade Books published his short story collection, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, in 2005.
He has won the Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada, The Endeavour Award for his historical novel What the Wind Brings, and the Global Book Award in the dark fantasy category for The Ghost-Wrangler.
A university drop-out from a working poor background, he worked in a factory that made school desks, drove a grocery delivery truck, was night janitor in a GM dealership, and did a short stint as an orderly in a private mental hospital. As a teenager, he served a year as a volunteer with the Company of Young Canadians.
He has made his living as a writer all of his adult life, first as a journalist in newspapers, then as a staff speechwriter to the Canadian Ministers of Justice and Environment, and, since 1979, as a freelance corporate and political speechwriter in British Columbia.
His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s, Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Postscripts, Interzone, and a number of "Year’s Best" anthologies. Night Shade Books published his short story collection, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, in 2005.
He has won the Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada, The Endeavour Award for his historical novel What the Wind Brings, and the Global Book Award in the dark fantasy category for The Ghost-Wrangler.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 17, 2024
Matt Hughes is a Canadian writer with an impressive background: former staff speechwriter to two federal cabinet ministers in the 1970s, and a top-rated speechwriter for three decades in British Columbia. Along with that, he’s written 24 novels which have been under contract to publishers large and small in the UK, US, and Canada, as well as sold over 100 works of short fiction to professional markets. I was pleased, in the 2010s, to be one of those publishers.
Matt has won the Arthur Ellis Award and Endeavour Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Prix Aurora, Locus, Nebula, and a sheaf of others.
To say Matt Hughes is comfortable with his craft would be stating the obvious.
His recent release, Margolyam, is a YA fantasy, set in a world familiar with magic and magicians.
The marketing blurb:
Orphaned at twelve, Margolyam leaves the port city of Golathreon to live with her aunt Oleadora, a sorceress and healer in the inland market town of Keddrick. But her new life brings out qualities in the girl that she never knew she possessed, and Margolyam begins a journey of self-discovery that will plunge her into the world of wizardry, with all its manifold wonders and dire perils.
This is very much a coming-of-age story, told in Matt’s comfortable, easy-to-read manner, and refreshingly done credibly from a young woman’s perspective. Margolyam, the main character, comes to realize she is what’s known as a tome-tickler, a rare form of sympathetic magic which plunges her into discovery of an ancient book in which an ancient wizard lives. The weight of that discovery, and the need to protect the tome and its captive, leads her on a journey across the continent, to a city populated primarily by renegade wizards. One sanctuary after another crumbles under the weight of political upheaval and feuding factions, leaving Margolyam facing difficult decisions and actions.
The plot hangs together very well, tumbling along at a good clip, although I found the characters a little stiff so that by the end of the novel, I really wanted to know more about Margolyam’s feelings and motivations. Mostly she allows herself to be shunted around, although perhaps that was a plot device to enhance her coming of age. The villains are pretty standard: narcissists, power-hungry, typical but identifiable and readable. If you’re looking for a complex novel, this isn’t it: simple, consumable, easy. While not the calibre of fantasy a reader expects from Naomi Novik or Premee Mohamed, Margolyam is an enjoyable summer read, despite the many copyediting oversights.
Matt has won the Arthur Ellis Award and Endeavour Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Prix Aurora, Locus, Nebula, and a sheaf of others.
To say Matt Hughes is comfortable with his craft would be stating the obvious.
His recent release, Margolyam, is a YA fantasy, set in a world familiar with magic and magicians.
The marketing blurb:
Orphaned at twelve, Margolyam leaves the port city of Golathreon to live with her aunt Oleadora, a sorceress and healer in the inland market town of Keddrick. But her new life brings out qualities in the girl that she never knew she possessed, and Margolyam begins a journey of self-discovery that will plunge her into the world of wizardry, with all its manifold wonders and dire perils.
This is very much a coming-of-age story, told in Matt’s comfortable, easy-to-read manner, and refreshingly done credibly from a young woman’s perspective. Margolyam, the main character, comes to realize she is what’s known as a tome-tickler, a rare form of sympathetic magic which plunges her into discovery of an ancient book in which an ancient wizard lives. The weight of that discovery, and the need to protect the tome and its captive, leads her on a journey across the continent, to a city populated primarily by renegade wizards. One sanctuary after another crumbles under the weight of political upheaval and feuding factions, leaving Margolyam facing difficult decisions and actions.
The plot hangs together very well, tumbling along at a good clip, although I found the characters a little stiff so that by the end of the novel, I really wanted to know more about Margolyam’s feelings and motivations. Mostly she allows herself to be shunted around, although perhaps that was a plot device to enhance her coming of age. The villains are pretty standard: narcissists, power-hungry, typical but identifiable and readable. If you’re looking for a complex novel, this isn’t it: simple, consumable, easy. While not the calibre of fantasy a reader expects from Naomi Novik or Premee Mohamed, Margolyam is an enjoyable summer read, despite the many copyediting oversights.
November 22, 2024
I never knew that I needed a flying bathtub until I read this book.
I have written before that Matthew Hughes enjoys writing stories about characters whose names appear way down in the movie credits. Most novels focus on the gallant hero who headlines the story. Hughes gets caught up with "banjo player #2" who has a strange bracelet, and proceeds to tell that person's story.
In the world of great and powerful magical types, Margolyam has a minor ability, one which the great and powerful do not possess. As she grows in her abilities and her understanding of them she encounters some good folks and so not so good folks.
What I most enjoy about Hughes' stories is that he takes an "unremarkable" character and puts them in a challenging situation. He does not give them a Blessed-Sword-of-Assured-Victory with which to defeat their adversaries. Instead, they have to use their unremarkable wits and the minor abilities at their disposal. The result is very satisfying to read. Thus, it was fun watching Margolyam grow as this story unfolded.
I have written before that Matthew Hughes enjoys writing stories about characters whose names appear way down in the movie credits. Most novels focus on the gallant hero who headlines the story. Hughes gets caught up with "banjo player #2" who has a strange bracelet, and proceeds to tell that person's story.
In the world of great and powerful magical types, Margolyam has a minor ability, one which the great and powerful do not possess. As she grows in her abilities and her understanding of them she encounters some good folks and so not so good folks.
What I most enjoy about Hughes' stories is that he takes an "unremarkable" character and puts them in a challenging situation. He does not give them a Blessed-Sword-of-Assured-Victory with which to defeat their adversaries. Instead, they have to use their unremarkable wits and the minor abilities at their disposal. The result is very satisfying to read. Thus, it was fun watching Margolyam grow as this story unfolded.
April 12, 2026
Madouc perchance in disguise?
Hughes’ novels some more than others are not evenly crafted, and as in this fits & starts, herky-jerky, implausibly meandering saga, in search of an ending. He has yet reliably to emulate his cynosure’s either efficient delivery, or seamless verisimilitude. He is not alone in this seeming age of absent very good either editing, or editors. Still, his cleverness, imagination, sensibility, subtlety & wit somewhat, rewardingly & engagingly shine through.
Hughes’ novels some more than others are not evenly crafted, and as in this fits & starts, herky-jerky, implausibly meandering saga, in search of an ending. He has yet reliably to emulate his cynosure’s either efficient delivery, or seamless verisimilitude. He is not alone in this seeming age of absent very good either editing, or editors. Still, his cleverness, imagination, sensibility, subtlety & wit somewhat, rewardingly & engagingly shine through.
May 10, 2025
Yet more basically delightful Hughes. Like many of his recent Vance-ian works, it's a collection of short stories that are loosely gathered together into a character arc, and are more about the world-building than the plot per se. This one in particular featured an excellent female protagonist. Recommended.
August 7, 2025
May LograM Is An Awesome Character!
I’d love to see the author work more with this character, and ‘Vunt’, ‘Baldemar’ and the ‘Lady from Exley’.
What a set of characters and the stories are outstanding.
I’d love to see the author work more with this character, and ‘Vunt’, ‘Baldemar’ and the ‘Lady from Exley’.
What a set of characters and the stories are outstanding.
August 21, 2024
Good focus on an interesting character
August 28, 2024
enjoyable as always
not as surprising as he often is
reused a big chunk from an earlier work
not as surprising as he often is
reused a big chunk from an earlier work
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews