Sylvia Izzo Hunter was born in Calgary, Alberta, back in the days before Star Wars, and started making up stories at approximately the time she learned to talk. A couple of decades ago she moved to Toronto, Ontario, where she now lives with her husband and daughter and their slightly out-of-control collections of books, comics, and DVDs. She studied English and French literature (with a particular focus on medieval and Renaissance poetry and drama) at York University; she has since discovered that her mom was right: in order to be a functioning grown-up, you really do need to know how to do math. Over the course of her working life Sylvia has been a slinger of tacos, a filer of patient charts and answerer of phones, a freelance looker-up of unconsidered trifles, an Orff-singing stage monk, and an exam tutor, but has mostly worked in not-for-profit scholarly publishing, where she started out making lots of photocopies and now gets to make XML and EPUB files (which is more fun). She also sings in two choirs (including the Orpheus Choir of Toronto), reads as much as possible, knits (mostly hats), and engages in experimental baking. 
The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter
Graham “Gray” Marshall is a gifted magician, studying magic at Oxford’s Merlin College, when some of his classmates insist he come along on a midnight adventure. In no time, things go bad. Gray is blamed for the misadventure and sent away from Oxford to the Breton estate of his tutor, the small-minded, petty and envious Professor Appius Callender. Sophie Callender is the ignored middle daughter of the professor. Her father has told her, repeatedly, that she has no magical ability, but she thirsts for knowledge and reads magical texts in secret. There is a mystery about Sophie’s mother, who died when Sophie was eight, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Wallis, knows more than she is telling.
The Midnight Queen, by Sylvia Izzo Hunter, reads a little bit like an old Georgette Heyer Regency novel. There is social stratification, etiquette, and magic. T... Read More
