Becoming The Muse

The Legacy of Arniston House Book Review

The Legacy of Arniston House by T.L. Huchu is the fourth installment in the Edinburgh Nights series. It was published by Tor Books on 7 November 2024.

The book continues the story of Ghosttalker Ropa Moyo as she learns some shocking truth about her family and becomes a prime suspect in a murder while she must summon all her skills and magic to face her biggest challenge yet…

The Good

Exorcism using mbira instrument, a library with books that could eat you up and a protagonist of Zimbabwean descent… Gotta love fantasy… and I love my fantasy best when there’s something Afrocentric about it.

Of all the books in the series, this one gives some answers and backstory to Ropa’s grandmother Melsie Mhondoro, who has always been hinted at being an enigmatic woman of unimaginable abilities in the previous books and was conspicuously absent in The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle.

The world building is immersive, and gives an interesting perspective to the history of Scotland, which more informed people would find profound, while us, with no clue, follow along the ride, learning the history and geopolitics that was not in our syllabus.

The Bad

Can Ropa catch a break?…. Just when it seemed that all her ducks were in a row, everything falls apart and its just her against the world, and her trusty bunch of friends, oh and a band of Artful Dodger misfists who took her in as a kid and gave her streetsmarts… girl’s had it rough, and this book is the most heartbreaking.

Ropa doesn’t have her usual agency and is mostly a reactive character to whom things are simply happening, and she is trying to figure out her next step, in a place that needs her but doesn’t want her, isn’t that ironic.

It’s the fourth book in a series and you will definitely need to have read the previous books to best enjoy it… It provides a lot of food for thought and then ends on a cliff-hanger that will have you checking when the next book will be released.

The Ugly

I want to see the protagonist leaning more into her ancestry and brand of magic, Chivanhu Craft which is treated as a footnote in the magical structures. Ropa’s ghosttalking and exorcism skills regardless of how impressive, are regarded as something beneath Scottish magic which no self respecting magician does.

There’s a lot of classism in the book, which is portrayed in very dark tones in the depiction of Scottish institutions, nationalism and class structures, with some almost cultic bourgeoisie.

Final Thoughts

The Legacy Of Arniston House is an emotionally intense addition to the Edinburgh Nights Series which connects the threads from the previous books into a tight plot and sets up for the next and final instalment in Ropa’s adventures, Secrets of the First School which drops 16 October 2025.

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