Beth's Reviews > Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot

This is an epistolary novel (novel in letter form) whose two correspondents are two young girls in 1817 in England. One, Cecilia, is at home in Essex, and the other, her cousin Kate, has gone to London with her beautiful sister Georgina for their first social season.

Now, I knew from the beginning, from reading a review or two, that the novel was written in actual letter form between its two authors. That was all the background I had for it. But after reading a few letters, and knowing from its cover that it had two authors, I probably could have guessed that. And also, somewhat unfortunately, that there wasn't a lot of planning put into it, that it was done for fun.

You have two very similar sets of characters in Essex and London: plucky young lass/correspondent; mysterious, inexplicably irritating and blindingly obvious future love interest; restrictive aunt (who is suddenly indulgent or unobservant whenever it's necessary to get hero and heroine together in private); villainous sorceror; beautiful belle. They could have mixed things up more in that respect.

I could see where Ms. Wrede and Ms. Stevermer dropped plot crumbs for the other to pick up, or shuffled a character off to the other setting to give her partner a novelty to play with. Some of the mysteries ended up being interesting, like the reason Aunt Elizabeth objects to magic. But some plot crumbs are swept under the rug, like horrible Hollydean and his tutor, and could have been excised without weakening the story.

I had no trouble following which character or item was where at any given time, even when magical portals were involved, but individual events didn't stick out much because there wasn't a lot of tension. Our real-life correspondent-authors seemed to want to set things up for the other more than to actually move things forward. As a result, you have a book that wanders around with not a whole lot happening for 3/4 of its length. Then they agree "Hmm, we'd better wrap this up," dispose of the villains, get the heroines hooked up with their beaux, the end.

The voices of the girls are charming, if surprisingly homogenous. Knowing which author is which, I prefer Wrede's heroine for her "we have to do something" and the fact that her boyfriend is the clumsy and ineffectual one who has to be saved a couple times. I also like the low-key level of magic, particularly the protective magic, which I believe was introduced into the narrative by Wrede in the form of the charm bags.

I have a collected book of Wrede's in the backlog, and this one has made me curious to see what her writing is like solo.

In summary? Inoffensive, forgettable fluff. Nothing wrong with it, has some good points, caused a chuckle now and then, but nothing to write home about. So to speak.