M.K. Hobson, born in 1969, grew up in Portland, Oregon. She attended the University of Oregon, where she ran the campus film society, helped launch a radical student ‘zine, and drove night-shift cab. After graduating with a degree in English and Communications, she moved to Japan to teach English. Returning to the US two years later, she purchased The Northwest Neighbor, a Portland community newspaper which she ran for several years before moving on to a career in the field of corporate communications. She lives in Oregon City, Oregon with her husband and daughter.
The Native Star by M.K. Hobson
The Native Staris a fantasy set in a West that never quite was: the West of tall tales, dime novels, and cheesy patent-medicine ads. M.K. Hobson realizes this mood perfectly, peoples the setting with memorable characters, and spins a compelling and well-thought-out plot.
When we first meet the heroine, Emily Edwards, she’s preparing a love spell to ensnare a local lumberman. The new patent-magic companies have cut into Emily’s business as a witch, and she can see no other way but marriage to keep herself and her father afloat. The spell is terribly unethical, of course — yet there was a part of me that found this scene refreshing. In fantasy there are so many anachronistic heroines who fight marriage with tooth and claw, even when it’s a viable solution to their problems and even when they live in a time when it’s one of very few options open to women. Emily’s more practi... Read More
