Books book reviews Broomsticks & Rocket Ships: The Starseekers by Nicole Glover Alex Brown reviews the latest installment in Nicole Glover’s Murder & Magic series. By Alex Brown | Published on January 22, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share The fourth standalone book in her Murder & Magic series, The Starseekers has Nicole Glover once again returning to the Rhodes family tree. This time she’s looking in on Cynthia Rhodes, the great-great-granddaughter of Hetty and Benjy Rhodes from the first two books. Set in during a magic-infused alternate history version of the 1960s Space Race, this book is as fun as it is full of twists and turns. It’s 1964 and Cynthia Rhodes is a human calculator at the Ainsworth Research Labs, a research facility for NASA. As an arcane engineer, her work is mostly focused on their nascent space program. She’s brilliant at her job, the kind of employee half her coworkers are jealous of and the other half are in awe of. On the side she cohosts a kids educational television program—think Sesame Street meets Mr. Wizard’s World but with magic—with the dashing Theo Danner. She and Theo met as young adults when they helped her grandparents get in and out of trouble as sleuths, but they parted ways years ago. Now he’s back in town as an archeology professor who is perpetually darting off to far-flung locations to find missing artifacts.  When a museum curator is stricken by a mysterious curse in front of her, Cynthia and Theo jump at the chance to get back into the mystery-solving game. Their investigations turn up even more curses, not to mention dead bodies, a sinister conspiracy, a secret society, police brutality, scientific sabotage, lost pirate’s treasure, and amnesia bombs. Everyone has a secret they’re desperate to keep, and the more Theo and Cynthia pry, the more dangerous things get.  The plot of The Starseekers covers a lot of ground, literally and metaphorically. The subterfuge takes them across the United States and all the way to the Caribbean, from Cynthia’s high-speed flights on her broomstick to sunken ships deep in the ocean. It also has so many interconnected subplots that it can be tricky to keep track of everything. Adding to the complications are the scenes that jump back in time. All of these threads were mostly relevant to the main plot and the development of Cynthia and Theo as characters, but at times it also felt like there were half a dozen ideas for other books Frankensteined into this one. A few of them probably could’ve been pruned without much detriment to the plot, but at least they were all entertaining. Because the plot was so sprawling, the cast list was extensive. There were so many people that I had a hard time remembering who they all were and what they were up to last time we heard from them.  The main and side mysteries were enchanting (pun intended). However, too many clues were uncovered not through Cynthia or Theo being clever but by chance. They too often stumbled upon a crucial artifact, corpse, or answer, or just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Much of the movement in the plot happens because of some lucky chance that Cynthia and Theo take advantage of rather than them pushing the plot forward by their own choices. The magic also felt overpowered to me. Everyone has magic in this world, and it takes a zillion different forms. I’m not the kind of reader that needs to understand how a magic system works, nor do I even need a magic system at all. However, to me the magic here felt too much like superpowers. Theo shoots ice from his hands, Cynthia throws bespelled cards and shapes magic in the form of animals, another character shoots magic blasts from a gun; as someone who spent a lot of their life reading comic books about metahumans and mutants, well.  I loved that this book features a majority Black cast. I also love that as omnipresent as magic is, Glover doesn’t let it become a panacea for racism and systemic oppression. There’s a side plot about police brutality that draws inspiration from the real world 1960s Civil Rights Movement. It’s so interesting to see how Glover imagines how magic would be used both by student protestors and the law enforcement officers sent to suppress them. This was reminiscent for me of The Conductors, which also dove into race relations as shaped by magic.  Family was another loadbearing theme. Cynthia has a complicated relationship with her parents and grandparents, so much so that it stains her relationship with her younger sisters. Once she lets go of some of that baggage, she’s able to better value her community. Relatedly, this is the kind of mystery that isn’t solved by one lone wolf going off to be reckless. It is a real community effort, with each participant providing something only they could give.  The Starseekers is technically the fourth book in the series, but it functions as a standalone. I read the first book, The Conductors, not long after it was published in 2021, but have not had the pleasure of the second or third (The Undertakers and The Improvisers, respectively). Fortunately, Glover provides an extensive family tree at the beginning of the book as well as lots of family history throughout the story. Those new to this series will find this a strong entry point. It functions well as a standalone, and has enough tidbits about the past that many readers will be excited to dive into Glover’s back catalogue to fill in the blanks. I know I certainly plan to. The promotional material I received comped Nicole Glover’s The Starseekers as Indiana Jones meets Hidden Figures, and if that isn’t the most accurate description I don’t know what is. It’s part mystery, part romance, part high-flying (literally!) adventure, part science fiction, and part alternate history, and yet with all that tumbling around, somehow she makes it all work. And special shout out to artist David de las Heras for an absolutely stunning cover![end-mark] The Starseekers is published by Harper Voyager. Buy the Book The Starseekers Nicole Glover Buy Book The Starseekers Nicole Glover Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget The post Broomsticks & Rocket Ships: <i>The Starseekers</i> by Nicole Glover appeared first on Reactor.