Nicole Glover Books In Order

Publication Order of Murder and Magic Books

Nicole Glover is an American author of historical fantasy and speculative fiction.

The author earned a psychology degree which she says helped to prepare her for her writing career and her other career as a UX researcher in Virginia. Her astrological sign is a Gemini Sun with a Capricorn Moon, which she says explains a lot about her but not everything. She loves researching and finds that part of writing a new book as fun as writing a new book is.

She made her writing debut in 2021 with the release of The Conductors. The book is a mix of genres as it contains elements of fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, and romance. This comes because the author herself was a bookworm who read anything that looked interesting. She enjoyed reading historical fiction, was a fan of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes, and read a lot of fantasy like Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series. She also cites Octavia Butler as an influence and she really paid attention to the things that she did with language in her writing.

She researched heavily for The Conductors as the book takes place in Reconstruction-era Philadelphia. She was really thorough and realized that studying that time wouldn’t be enough so she went back as early as the 1800s. She did some research that lead her to some diaries by Emily Davis that covered a couple of years of the Civil War. That really helped her to see what day to day life was like for a middle class person at that time.

The Conductors is the first book in the Murder & Magic series. The story follows Hetty and Benjy Rhodes, two Conductors on the Underground Railroad. They helped to ferry dozens of slaves to freedom with help from a magic that draws power from the constellations. After the war, they need to find a new use for their skills and they use them to solve mysteries that the white authorities choose to ignore.

They operate in Philadelphia’s Seventh Ward where everyone knows they can be counted on to investigate strange cases. Their latest investigation gets personal when one of their old friends is murdered. The investigation leads them into a wasp nest of intrigue, lies, and secrets, and a mystery that is unlike anything they have ever dealt with before.

The Undertakers is the second book in the Murder & Magic series. The latest case for these two sees them stumble upon a case where the answers seem to be just a little bit too neat and tidy. Raimond Duval is a victim of the fires in Philadelphia and his death is ruled as an accident by the authorities. Hetty and Benjy’s investigation says otherwise as the Fire Company is known to let Black homes burn. Another death adds to their investigation when Raimond’s son is found dead.

They take on the dubious honor of handling Valentine’s funeral and it becomes even clearer that this death was intentional. The death of father and son are connected and the fires plaguing the city are connected somehow.