Review: The League of Gentlewomen Witches

“The League of Gentlewomen Witches” by India Holton is a sequel to “The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels” (here’s my review) and makes not secret of it. In the very first chapter, the main character of the first book is name-dropped and she will appear as a side character in later chapters. After enjoying the first book of the “Dangerous Damsels” series very much, I actually pre-ordered this one and I’m glad I did and got it right as it came out that way. I had a fun time reading it, just as I did with the first one.

The first book in the series has established the general world-building — about a century before the late-Victorian ‘now,’ a woman named Beryl Black got stranded with her husband, a rather unsuccessful explorer, and found a message in a bottle on the beach of the Caribbean island she was stranded on. The message was a Latin poem which, if properly pronounced, enables the user to lift and direct an object of any size. Beryl first used it to fly back to England in a small hut, then outfitted her house with cannons, and became the very first sky pirate under the alias of Black Beryl, flying her house on plundering runs.
She shared the poem with her friends and some of those, too, took to the skies, forming the Wisteria Society. Other friends decided to use the poem in a more discreet way, not moving full houses, but small objects to manipulate the world around them (or steal and sell the objects — witches have to eat, too, after all). They’re known as the Wicken League and are considered witches.
The first book in the series deals with the pirates and is focused on Cecilia Bassingthwaite. The second book deals with the witches and is focused on Charlotte Pettifer, who is destined, according to her aunt, to become the next leader of the Wicken League.

Both organisations are in play in the book, because both have the same target in mind: an amulet which Black Beryl created out of the bottle in which the poem was found. As the bottle must have housed the poem for a long time, the amulet is thought to be immensely powerful (although nobody knows what the power is), so both the pirates and the witches want it.
Charlotte is supposed to secure it for the witches, but finds herself in a bind when a pirate flies off with the amulet (and the poor guy holding it at that time) and she is in need of quick transport. That transport can very well be provided by Alex O’Riley, a pirate she’s had a run-in with before and whose house is closest to her position. Alex, on the other hand, despises witches for what one did to him as a child, and wants the amulet for himself. Yet, she manages to be ‘kidnapped’ by him, although not to commandeer his house.
From there, the story is off to twist the tropes of Gothic novels and Regency romances into new shapes to the reader’s amusement.

One thing I love very much about the book is that while it presents the reader with new main characters (Charlotte and Alex, obviously), it doesn’t ignore what came before. Not only does Alex have a smaller role in the first book already, as he’s a good friend of Ned Lightbourne, the male lead, and comes to Ned’s help, but Ned and Cecilia also turn up in the story again (as do many of the pirate ladies, including Cecilia’s now-married maiden aunt whose new marital status is a result of the first book’s climax).
Ned and Cecilia are still very much in love, but they are also both pirates and want the amulet as much as everyone else. Even Cecilia’s current state (she’s pregnant) doesn’t keep her from being an adventurous woman who enjoys her life. I was not expecting this at all — most authors who write about different romantic couples let those who have finished courting and are happily married drop from the story. I’m glad, though, that the “Dangerous Damsels” series isn’t doing it. It’s so beautiful to see Cecilia and Ned together, now a perfect team, who are still deeply in love, too.
Yet, the focus remains on Charlotte and Alex who have their own problems to work through, from Charlotte’s aunt who insists she needs to stay single over their growing interest in each other to Alex’s hatred for witches which comes from his own childhood. That doesn’t mean, though, that the story is dark and depressing.

As in the first book, India Holton manages to create a fascinating and engaging tale that keeps you reading from the first to the last page. She wields all the tropes of both Gothic novels and Regency romance masterfully and name-drops real-world books like the full Jane-Austen canon or Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” at fitting times.
Twisting the tropes into something new and making fun of them as she does is one thing which already endeared her first book very much to me. In the second one, for instances, she makes fun of the ‘last room at the inn’ trope which she played straight in the first one. Everyone knows that when a couple thrown together by circumstances is forced to spend a night at an inn, there will only be one room left and this room will only have one bed in it. Well, in this book, there is the inn and the one room, but that room dares to have two beds in it (which the couple immediately pushes together to work through some sexual tension).

Charlotte is in a similar place at the beginning as Cecilia is in the first book — both are in a cul-de-sac they can’t get out of on their own. Cecilia is being kept from full status as a member of the Wisteria Society because she might be too much like her father, Charlotte is seen as ther future replacement of her aunt who is still rather healthy and probably not going to die tomorrow. Both meet men they immediately feel pulled towards, but still refuse to go along with easily (Ned first turns up as an assassin sent to kill Cecilia, Alex has his briefcase stolen by Charlotte). Both are also active and proactive — they are not, in the regular way of seeing them, damsels at all.

“The League of Gentlewomen Witches” is a great fun, it has action, romance, comedy, and melodrama of the best kind. The mixture of all of the elements is what makes it a joy to read. Comedic situations, as a fight in a coffee shop over a thrown book, turn into action, such as being followed by the theft victim and using discreet magic to stall the follower, then into bickering with romantic undertones as he catches up, and back into action when the only way out is escape by flying bicycle. India Holton is good at all of theses things, which is what makes the book such a great read and has earned it a place on the list of my books to certainly reread.