“Fantastic . an honest, beautifully detailed publication and an interesting read.”

-DIANA GABALDON, THE WASHINGTON POST

‘A fantastical treat.’

-PEOPLE

“Concurrently sweeping and intricate . . . Tompkins’s amazing debut book conjures an epic fight for the soul of Ireland. Filled with papal machination and royal intrigue, magic and mayhem, faeries, Vikings, legates, kings and queens, angels and goddesses, this is one wild and breathless trip.”

-KAREN JOY FOWLER

“Plundering the about The Last Days of Magic: A Novel treasure chest of human myths, from mysterious biblical giants to ferocious Celtic faeries, Tompkins has generated a fantasy experience with the moving perspectives of dreamscape. A book rich and unusual.”

-GERALDINE BROOKS

What became of magic in the world? Who needed to do away with it, as well as for what reasons? Drawing on myth, legend, fairy stories, and Biblical mysteries, The Last Days of Magic brilliantly imagines answers to these queries, sweeping us back again to a world where humans and magical beings co-exist as they had for years and years.

Aisling, a goddess in individual form, was created to guideline both domains and-with her twin, Anya-unite the Celts with the powerful faeries of the Middle Kingdom. But within medieval Ireland interests are divided, and definately not its shores greater pushes are mustering. Both Britain and Rome possess a stake in generating magic from the Emerald Isle. Jordan, the Vatican commander tasked with vanquishing the remnants of otherworldly creatures from a disenchanted European countries, has built a career on such plots. But increasingly he finds himself torn between responsibility and his desire to comprehend the magic that is forbidden.

As kings prepare, exorcists collect, and divisions widen between the warring clans of Ireland, Aisling and Jordan need to come to terms with powers given and withheld, while a world that may still foster magic hangs in the balance. Loyalties are tested, betrayals sown, and the arriving war could have repercussions that ripple hundreds of years later, in today’s world-and in particular for a young graduate student called Sara Hill.

The Last Times of Magic introduces us to unforgettable characters who grapple with quests for power, human frailty, as well as the longing for knowledge that is made taboo. Mark Tompkins provides crafted a remarkable tale-a feat of world-building that poses amazing and resonant answers to epic questions.