Humor

Book Review: THE SECRET SERVICE OF TEA AND TREASON by India Holton

| Jessica Crawford

The Secret Service of Tea and Treason by India Holton is a 334 page novel published by Berkley in 2023. It is third in the Dangerous Damsels series, but can be read as a standalone.

Genre:

Historical Romance, Cozy Fantasy, Humor

Tropes:

Rivals to lovers, fake marriage

Opening Line:

It was the best of dress shops, it was the worst of dress shops.

Synopsis:

Two rival spies must brave pirates, witches, and fake matrimony to save the Queen.

Known as Agent A, Alice is the top operative within the Agency of Undercover Note Takers, a secret government intelligence group that is fortunately better at espionage than at naming itself. From managing deceptive witches to bored aristocratic ladies, nothing is beyond Alice’s capabilities. She has a steely composure and a plan always up her sleeve (alongside a dagger and an embroidered handkerchief). So when rumors of an assassination plot begin to circulate, she’s immediately assigned to the case.

But she’s not working alone. Daniel Bixby, otherwise known as Agent B and Alice’s greatest rival, is given the most challenging undercover assignment of his life— pretending to be Alice’s husband. Together they will assume the identity of a married couple, infiltrate a pirate house party, and foil their unpatriotic plans.

Determined to remain consummate professionals, Alice and Daniel must ignore the growing attraction between them, especially since acting on it might prove more dangerous than their target.

My Thoughts:

THE SECRET SERVICE OF TEA AND TREASON by India Holton 🫖☕️🕵️🏴‍☠️🧙‍♀️💗

A rivals to lovers, fake marriage historical romance with fantasy elements and neurodiverse main characters? Yes, please!

My Books on Tap group (we meet at a different brewery twice a month and go around the table taking turns discussing whatever book we’re reading at the time) recently had a mystery book swap night. We each brought a book wrapped up to hide its identity, then wrote a few descriptors on the front. This was the book I picked (actually, I wound up picking two because the host brought extra in case someone came empty handed). It is the third in the Dangerous Damsels series, but worked perfectly well as a standalone. I could tell which of the characters here had wound up together in previous books in the series.

Alice and Daniel are the two top agents in an underground agency that trains “the help” (maids, housekeepers, butlers, footmen, valets) in espionage. They must join a party of pirates (who, by the way, use incantations to make their houses fly) posing as a married couple in order to thwart a conspiracy to assassinate Queen Victoria. What follows is a fun and absurd romp that prioritizes humor over a sensible plot. Chapters begin with amusingly modified literary quotes from the likes of Austen.

There are pretty explicit open door love scenes, and mild comedic violence.

One complaint that is exceedingly minor in the grand scheme of things: I counted four instances of characters’ mouths shrugging. Wut?

I had been wanting to try this author and am glad the book swap gave me the opportunity. It was a fun story that managed to be fairly swoonworthy to boot.

Book Review: THE HEXOLOGISTS by Josiah Bancroft

| Jessica Crawford

The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft is a 318 page novel published by Orbit in 2024, and is the first entry in a new series.

Genre: Fantasy

Subgenres: Steampunk, cozy

Synopsis: The first book in a wildly inventive and mesmerizing new fantasy series from acclaimed author Josiah Bancroft where magical mysteries abound and only one team can solve The Hexologists.

The Hexologists, Iz and Warren Wilby, are quite accustomed to helping desperate clients with the bugbears of city life. Aided by hexes and a bag of charmed relics, the Wilbies have recovered children abducted by chimney-wraiths, removed infestations of barb-nosed incubi, and ventured into the Gray Plains of the Unmade to soothe a troubled ghost. Well-acquainted with the weird, they never shy away from a challenging case.

But when they are approached by the royal secretary and told the king pleads to be baked into a cake—going so far as to wedge himself inside a lit oven—the Wilbies soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery that could very well see the nation turned on its head. Their effort to expose a royal secret buried under forty years of lies brings them nose to nose with a violent anti-royalist gang, avaricious ghouls, alchemists who draw their power from a hell-like dimension, and a bookish dragon who only occasionally eats people.

Armed with a love toughened by adversity and a stick of chalk that can conjure light from the darkness, hope from the hopeless, Iz and Warren Wilby are ready for a case that will test every spell, skill, and odd magical artifact in their considerable bag of tricks.

Opening Line:

“The king wishes to be cooked alive,” the royal secretary said, accepting the proffered saucer and cup and immediately setting both aside.

My Thoughts:

Josiah Bancroft is a criminally unsung fantasy author. His first novel, Senlin Ascends, was self-published and submitted to author Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. It made it to the final stage of the competition before losing to another novel, but had been reviewed so positively by the book bloggers that it gained its own following. It’s the first book in a now-completed tetralogy, The Books of Babel. The Hexlogists is the first book in his new series, and it is pretty darn great! A work of fantasy, this new world he has created has a healthy helping of steampunk elements, and some cozy factors to boot (although the stakes are certainly high).

It was bedlam, a hedonistic riot, or as Victor described it, “the usual whoop-de-do.”

Isolde and Warren Wilby are a very happily married couple known as The Hexologists, though it’s really only Is who practices the art, while War mostly cooks gourmet meals, acts as the brawn when called for, and takes over in social situations requiring the finesse that his wife lacks. Neither is much of a fan of the Crown and its policies, but find themselves hired to look into the matter of blackmail by someone claiming to be the illegitimate child of the king. Of course, there winds up being much, MUCH more going on behind the scenes, and our hexologists are in for quite the adventure.

“That is a Hex of Woe. Its bearer will suffer from insomnia, vertigo, tremors, impotence, styes, tinnitus, and galloping flatulence.”

Bancroft fleshes out this fantasy world with its politics and history of its magics: wizardry, alchemy, necromancy, and hexology. I admit to being a bit lost at times with the details of world building. But this was more than made up for with the fascinating characters, engaging adventures, and an abundance of lines that made me literally laugh out loud. I love how this author writes more unique fantasy rather than simply borrowing from what has become standard for the genre. The result of that combined with the humorous voice of his writing is simply delightful. It’s got the discipline of hex-casting, an incubus who can tell you the details about any corpse buried within its jurisdiction, a gargoyle Goddess of Grotesques, and a gourmand dragon inside what amounts to a bag of holding and who offers many moments of hilarity throughout the story.

He soothed her with walks and theater tickets and outings to bookshops, museums, and restaurants where he confounded the staff by pouring entire boats of gravy into a tattered carpetbag that vented fire like a steak flambé.

There is some mild violence in this book, and several fade to black scenes of our heroes getting randy, but nothing graphic in either regard. This book does not end on a cliffhanger, but just leaves the door open for further escapades for our intrepid duo. Reading this was a delight and I definitely plan on continuing in the series when the sequel is released. I cannot recommend this author enough to fans of the genre!

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Book Review: A MOST AGREEABLE MURDER by Julia Seales

| Jessica Crawford

A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales, is a 300+ page debut novel published in 2023 by Random House.

Genre:

Cozy mystery/historical fiction with a hint of romance and heaps of humor

Opening Line:

In the English countryside there was a small township called Swampshire, comprised of several lovely mansions and one disgusting swamp.

Synopsis:

When a wealthy bachelor drops dead at a ball, a young lady takes on the decidedly improper role of detective in this action-packed debut comedy of manners and murder.

Feisty, passionate Beatrice Steele has never fit the definition of a true lady, according to the strict code of conduct that reigns in Swampshire, her small English township–she is terrible at needlework, has absolutely no musical ability, and her artwork is so bad it frightens people. Nevertheless, she lives a perfectly agreeable life with her marriage-scheming mother, prankster father, and two younger sisters– beautiful Louisa and forgettable Mary. But she harbors a dark secret: She is obsessed with the true crime cases she reads about in the newspaper. If anyone in her etiquette-obsessed community found out, she’d be deemed a morbid creep and banished from respectable society forever.

For her family’s sake, she’s vowed to put her obsession behind her. Because eligible bachelor Edmund Croaksworth is set to attend the approaching autumnal ball, and the Steele family hopes that Louisa will steal his heart. If not, Martin Grub, their disgusting cousin, will inherit the family’s estate, and they will be ruined or, even worse, forced to move to France. So Beatrice must be on her best behavior . . . which is made difficult when a disgraced yet alluring detective inexplicably shows up to the ball.

Beatrice is just holding things together when Croaksworth drops dead in the middle of a minuet. As a storm rages outside, the evening descends into a frenzy of panic, fear, and betrayal as it becomes clear they are trapped with a killer. Contending with competitive card games, tricky tonics, and Swampshire’s infamous squelch holes, Beatrice must rise above decorum and decency to pursue justice and her own desires–before anyone else is murdered.

My Thoughts:

This is a delightfully humorous Regency era locked room mystery! I agree with the comparison to the Bridgerton TV show crossed with an Agatha Christie novel, plus some hilarious ridiculousness added for flavor.

Miss Beatrice Steele and her sisters are expected to make advantageous marriages. There are very strict rules of decorum in Swampshire, England, and unfortunately, Beatrice’s interest in reading about murder investigations is quite explicitly forbidden in The Lady’s Guide to etiquette. She is therefore delighted when, one stormy evening at a ball at Stabmort Park, a guest is murdered. Here is her chance to conduct her own investigation while seeming helpful rather than morbid! The investigation is a twisty one, as it seems there are multiple members of Swampshire society hiding their own unseemly secrets.

This was a good mystery story, but the best part is the humor! From Mr. Steele’s constant silly pranks at the most inopportune times, to the frequent allusions to the fact that Beatrice’s youngest sister might be a werewolf without ever addressing it head on, and the explanation that no one else ever attended Miss Bolton’s theatrical productions because all of Swampshire happened to misplace their invitations in their fireplaces – this book was a hoot! The letters, article excerpts, play scripts and other little bits in between chapters are also a nice touch.

There is a bit of a romance burgeoning in this story. At the end of the book is a sneak peek at Book 2, which is the first I learned that this was going to be a series – this book could work perfectly well as a standalone, only the romance has not yet come to full fruition. I, for one, look forward to reading more about Beatrice and Inspector Vivek Drake simultaneously antagonizing and growing to care for one another as they solve crimes together in London.

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