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sophia_sol) wrote2014-07-11 09:27 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2014-07-11 09:27 pm
Sorcery & Cecelia!
Sorcery & Cecelia, or, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: being the correspondence of two Young Ladies of Quality regarding various Magical Scandals in London and the Country, by Patricia C Wrede & Caroline Stevermer
This is a comforting old reread. An epistolary novel set in the regency period WITH MAGIC, the correspondence being between two young women who are cousins and best friends. And basically it is a novel about HIJINKS and DOING THINGS THAT NEED DOING and LADIES BEING AWESOME and LADIES BEING FRIENDS WITH LADIES. There is a lot of eye-rolling about how the love-interest dudes are muddling things up wrt what would be the most sensible course of action, and the ladies totally save the day. Including some day-saving from the mother-in-law-to-be of one of the main characters! AWW YEAH. There is also some day-saving from the (male) magic tutor of one of the main characters. And I'm just like YEAHHHHHHHHH the badasses of the book are all female and/or middle-aged-or-older; the young, attractive, rich, and titled men are NOT (including the love-interest dudes).
Part of the fun of the book, I think, is how clear it is that the authors were having fun writing it. They wrote it as a "letter game" between them, where they each wrote letters to each other as if from one of the characters, and did not talk about plot with each other at all but just riffed on each other's letters. And they were doing this just for fun, and when they got to the end they were like "...this is totally a book we could get published" so they edited it up a bit and did.
This is a comforting old reread. An epistolary novel set in the regency period WITH MAGIC, the correspondence being between two young women who are cousins and best friends. And basically it is a novel about HIJINKS and DOING THINGS THAT NEED DOING and LADIES BEING AWESOME and LADIES BEING FRIENDS WITH LADIES. There is a lot of eye-rolling about how the love-interest dudes are muddling things up wrt what would be the most sensible course of action, and the ladies totally save the day. Including some day-saving from the mother-in-law-to-be of one of the main characters! AWW YEAH. There is also some day-saving from the (male) magic tutor of one of the main characters. And I'm just like YEAHHHHHHHHH the badasses of the book are all female and/or middle-aged-or-older; the young, attractive, rich, and titled men are NOT (including the love-interest dudes).
Part of the fun of the book, I think, is how clear it is that the authors were having fun writing it. They wrote it as a "letter game" between them, where they each wrote letters to each other as if from one of the characters, and did not talk about plot with each other at all but just riffed on each other's letters. And they were doing this just for fun, and when they got to the end they were like "...this is totally a book we could get published" so they edited it up a bit and did.
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