Reading: Tea and Sympathetic Magic

[white_hart]

Tea and Sympathetic Magic is a Regency-romance-with-magic-and-more-liberal-social-values novella by Tansy Rayner Roberts. It's set in the Teacup Isles, where the main pursuits of fashionable society are garden parties, house parties and magically-enhanced croquet, all pursued as part of the quest for every eligible young woman to secure a good marriage. Mnemosyne Seabourne, however, would prefer to be at home with a good book, and, whatever her mamma might want, has no interest in marrying her cousin the Duke of Storm. When the Duke disappears from his own house party one night, she and Mr Thornbury, the spellcracker whose job is to find and dismantle the charms deployed by the female guests to win the Duke's affections, find themselves leading a mission to rescue him from a forced elopement.

Tea and Sympathetic Magic is charming, funny, and just the kind of cosy fluff that you might well want to read given the state of the world right now. I particularly liked that (with the exception of the villain of the piece) everyone is nice and even the various rivals for the Duke's hand are happy to work together when needed rather than sniping at each other. The ebook is currently only available to Roberts' Patreon subscribers, but is due to be released for general sale later this year.