In answer to the question in the lyrics of the classic song “The Lovin’ Spoonful,” Kayleigh Nicol believes in magic. She finds it in animals. She and her husband recently transplanted to Waco, Texas, and live with two rescued greyhounds, two cats, a snake, and an iguana. She finds it in reading. Her father read her Treasure Island “when I was far too young to understand it,” she says. She finds it in fantasy. One of her early jobs was to drive a trolley up and down Main Street at Disneyland. “You immerse yourself in a character,” she says. “You’re not considered an employee; they call you a cast member. They expect you to make magic, and I loved that aspect of the job.”

But mostly she finds magic in writing stories, and her debut novel, Sorcerous Rivalry, is brimming with the stuff. Kirkus Reviews calls it “a free-wheeling, clever, and joyful debut that should be on every fantasy reader’s shelf.”

Sorcerous Rivalry, the first in The Mage-Born Chronicles series, creates an awe-inspiring world in which Reshi, who grew up in an orphanage, discovers he is one of seven illegitimate children fathered by the king with Laurana, his sorcerous mistress. She was imprisoned, and the seven children were scattered across the kingdom. Reshi, a shape-shifter, sets out to reconnect with his siblings. He forms a telepathic bond with his sister Cera, with whom he teams up to foil the bounty hunters looking to collect the prices on the siblings’ heads.

If a sibling dies, the survivors absorb their magic, which results in a decided lack of family loyalty. “Nicol’s fantasy novel is set in a streamlined medieval realm that requires no map to enjoy, and it runs on a fiendish series of cascading betrayals,” Kirkus praises. “She employs a strict show-don’t-tell policy, which keeps the storytelling crisp throughout the novel. Readers learn the major characters’ backstories in tantalizing slivers. The introduction of each sibling is thrilling.”

For example, Nicol teases the reader with Reshi’s fluid sexuality, as when he eyes Kestral, a handsome new boarder at an inn, and declares him “my favorite kind of mark.” It is only after Reshi sneaks into Kestral’s room at night “on velvet feet,” crawls into bed with the boarder, and licks his lower lip that Nicol reveals that Reshi has taken the form of a cat:

He didn’t startle the way I wanted him to; he didn’t jump, and he certainly didn’t shout in alarm. His eyes snapped open and caught mine like a snare. I froze under that stare, even my breath stopped. Who knew eyes could be that perfectly blue?

“Hello,” he said. “Did you sneak in from outside or are you a mouser here?”

I responded with a deep, throaty purr. The strange traveler shifted beneath the blanket, turning so I slipped from his chest onto the bed beside him. One hand appeared over the blankets to rub my ears. His touch was unexpectedly gentle.

Complicating matters is that Kestral is a bounty hunter.

Nicol was in “a reading slump” when she was inspired to write her book. “I realized there was a story idea I wanted to read, but I couldn’t find the exact concept out there,” she says. “I wanted a high-fantasy adventure, I wanted magic, and I wanted shape-shifting. I was writing this book for me.”

She grew up in the Northeast in a literary household. Her father, a lawyer, was a history buff who could name all of the presidents and vice presidents in chronological order. Her mother is a university librarian. “One of my favorite moments ever is holding a Gutenberg Bible,” she says. Her grandmother had a collection of cherished Nancy Drew books. When Nicol’s family visited her Connecticut home, she doled out only one book at a time. “I had to finish it before I could take out the next one,” Nicol laughs.

Not surprisingly, she loved animal stories, heartbreaking though classics such as Black Beauty and Where the Red Fern Grows were. But fantasy books stirred her imagination. She cites Tamora Pierce, author of The Song of the Lioness young adult series, as a gateway author for her. “I loved her protagonists,” she says. “Her women were always so strong, but there was no cookie-cutter [characterization]. A girl who likes to wear dresses could still be a strong girl, which showed me you don’t have to buck the norms to be considered strong.”

Reshi’s battle-hardened sister Kila is Nicol’s strong woman. “She’s been killing hunters since the bounties came out, but they still don’t know her power,” Cera tells her brother. Subverting convention, narrator-hero Reshi has no problem with her taking the lead and literally standing behind her when it comes to a fight.

Another author associated with fantasy whom Nicol cites as an influence is Brandon Sanderson. “He is one of my absolute favorites,” she says. “If I took anything from him, it is the way he builds a world. I really love how he does that. His magic systems are very rigid.”

Prior to writing, Nicol worked extensively with animals. She received her degree in animal science and at one point worked with therapeutic animals on a ranch in New York whose human population was either physically or mentally challenged. As a reader, she says, a particular bugaboo is when the author gets animal facts wrong. “It’s important to me,” she says, “so I did a lot of research.” For example, at one point, she includes the fact that horses cannot see properly at night. 

Nicol is a full-time writer. She credits her chemical-engineer husband with doing all the research and marketing that helped get her book noticed by reviewers. Marketing, she says, “is a whole lot tougher” than the writing.

The second book in The Mage-Born Chronicles has been published as well as an anthology of “world-building stories.” Nicol is currently completing the third book in the series. But she never feels like a book is finished, she says. “In my head, there is never a point where it’s 100% done. [After] hearing the [Sorcerous Rivalry] audiobook, I found more things I want to fix.”

That said, it was a profoundly moving experience to unbox Sorcerous Rivalry and hold it in her hands for the first time, she says. “I think I cried.”

Donald Liebenson is a Chicago-based writer.