Which reminds me, I enjoyed reading about Kat's adventures in
stephanieburgis's A Most Improper Magick. For the first half, I kept feeling that it wanted to be an Aventure story, but was stuck indoors in a small house; then it took off, cross-country, with ruins, highwaymen, magic, and punching people. Symbolism threw me out of the story very briefly once: anything painted olive long ago, in a place where there used to be an Olivia, is implicitly connected for me, even if it's not meant to be. Overall, it's like Georgette Heyer for 12 year olds, with magic.I'm currently reading
papersky's Lifelode; so far, so very good. 