The heart wants what the heart wants, and our hearts want books.

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Let’s take a ride on the Way Back Machine to October 2020, the first month in which Heart.Wants.Books. Celebrated a month filled with Witchy Reads. At that time, we read (I re-read) and reviewed The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe. Today, we’re finally reviewing the title I purchased for us that month for the low, low price of $2.99 on Kindle, The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs, Howe’s 2019 release and the follow-up title to Physick. Howe has also co-written two books with Anderson Cooper since our last review in 2020, Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune this year, and the bestseller Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty from 2021. Howe has several other novels and, as a reminder, edited The Penguin Book of Witches. She lives and sails in New England with her family, where she’s working on her next novel and puts hot sauce on everything.

Connie and her boyfriend Sam have been living in Boston for the past 9 years since the life-changing summer of 1991. Connie is on tenure track for an Early American History position at Northeastern University and Sam is a steeplejack, preserving historic church buildings for the future. Connie’s mother, Grace, is living in the house on Milk Street in Marblehead, Massachusetts, that had been passed down to them from their magical foremothers all the way back to Deliverance Dane. Connie’s in the middle of a myriad of small crises: she’s struggling to be inspired by the book she’s writing to help secure tenure, her newest doctoral student, Zazi (short for Esperanza) attends Harvard – not Northeastern!-  and studies occult religions in early America, she keeps fighting the peer pressure to get a cell phone, and she has to decide about Sam wanting to get married. She has a lot of decisions to make and would really just prefer to coast along until tenure is secured than have to make them. She especially does not want to advertise that Deliverance Dane’s Physick book is preserved on microfilm and is her main primary source for the book she’s been trying to write, and now has to use to finish up her book and save the life she has been trying to build for a decade.

The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs is an engrossing second installment to Physick, continuing with the same cast of characters – plus one or two- set in the near enough past to be nostalgic and also make me feel a little old. I’m giving Daughters four solid stars. I’ll recommend it to anyone looking for a modern-ish witchy read or anyone who wants a book about a life in academia. It was a fast-paced read once I finally sat down with the words and being reintroduced to familiar characters was a balm in a crazy week.

Do you enjoy reading a sequel to a book even if it comes out a decade later?

~Ashley

I get to go first in answering Ashley’s question – I do enjoy a sequel that comes out a decade later, especially if the action in the aforementioned sequel takes place a decade later!  I also enjoy a reread before reading said sequel, and while I didn’t do that in this case, I did look up a couple of pieces, especially in the beginning, because as you all know, my memory is not all there sometimes.  

Before I take a hard turn, I’m going to continue piggy backing on Ashley.  I love Connie’s refusal to get a cell phone.  LOVE IT!  Remember, we’re talking 2000, so while most folks had a cell phone, not everyone did.  Some days I wish I still didn’t!  You also know I love a good train wreck on the page, and woah isn’t Connie’s life a hot mess express, even if it is one of her own making, which is frustrating.  After getting fully immersed in The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs, I remembered one of my struggles with The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane – I wanted more from Connie.  In the first book she’s younger, still finding herself, so I get it, but 10 years later and approaching tenure, I do expect a bit of adulting to go on, well, a bit more than I see on the page at least, and I also expect some character development as she’s in the process of realizing her dreams.  Ashley says she got there, I’m going to sit squarely on the fence because while there was minimal progress, I don’t know that it was enough, especially when I feel like there were pieces of development Sam drug Connie through fighting him all the way.  

Hard turn and all, I’m giving The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs four solid stars.  The writing is thoughtful and atmospheric, the plot is very fun and intriguing, especially the witchy bits, historical and modern, and even though the character development wasn’t everything I wanted, I guess there was some marginal growth.  It was fun to be back in Marblehead, Salem, and Boston, and again made me want to take such a trip in the fall.  I don’t know that I’ll reread it, but I’m definitely more interested in Howe’s backlist!

What’s a book you have a beef with but adore all the same?

~Nikki

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Darling readers, do we have a fun book for you today!  I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe this book to you, and Ashley had the perfect description waiting in my Instagram DMs:

The House Witch: A Humorous Romantic Fantasy (Book 1) by Delemhach is a chill, fun hang.  It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and is a Hallmark-feeling fall book.  Yes, it features a witch, as he starts his job as the cook for the king, meanwhile the kingdom is on the brink of war with a power-hungry neighbor.  It also includes the aforementioned romance (although the romance isn’t the focus, so much as the character development of our main character), spies, power dynamics of class and countries, the patriarchy, the love of found family, and more themes in this warm hug of a story!  

While The House Witch isn’t a literary masterpiece, it doesn’t pretend to be.  It’s a fun, escapist read that you can take as deep or as shallow as you want given the themes above.  The dialogue was snappy, the descriptions were picturesque, and the story makes a fun comfort read with some chill “hold my beer” energy.  The character development was front and center, along with the acceptance of others as they are and the importance of being kind, especially to those who are perceived as less powerful, while also addressing how to achieve these goals with others who are not so inclined and / or aware.

I really enjoyed The House Witch and am giving it a solid three stars.  I am not certain I’ll continue in the series, as I do have some other priorities for my next few weeks of Kindle Unlimited time, but I’d be up for a buddy read in the future if the stars align.  What I really want is a solid movie version of this book.  I think that’d be a super fun evening!

What’s a book that was a fun hang, and would make a more fun movie?

~Nikki 

Delemhach is a Canadian author who lives with their two cats, Kraken and Pina Colada, and teaches music privately. When not writing, dealing with cat shenanigans, or teaching music, they enjoy ‘cooking, reading, hiking, spending time with family, and trying not to remember their socially awkward moments.’ While scouring the interwebs for more author information, I found the Delemhach TikTok account and found out that her name is Emilie, Delemhach can mean delectable in Scots Gaelic, and that each of her real life cats features in her two trilogies set in the same fantasy world, Kraken in The House Witch and Pina in The Burning Witch. Cat representation is definitely something I find exciting. The Princess of Potential is another cozy, slow-burn romance set in the same world.

I really enjoyed the new fantasy world that is introduced in The House Witch. The magic system is both familiar to readers of the witchy genre and just different enough to make stopping reading the series less of a possibility. I think if I didn’t want to see what Finlay Ashowan’s house magic powers could become in the future, I would also probably stop at having read just book one in the trilogy. I am not, however, immediately hankering for book 2 and all those that follow. The political/national system seems slightly simplistic, but of course, I have only read one story set in one location (with few flashback scenes), and it definitely has room to grow in complexity. Delemhach’s cozy, contained story is in deep contrast to the first few chapters of Sarah J. Maas’s Crescent City series where the reader is bombarded with complex magic, racial, and political systems immediately upon the page and are trying to figure it all out while mentally pronouncing names that make no sense.

I, too, am giving The House Witch three solid stars for it meeting expectations in the ‘fantasy romantic comedy’ genre. I’m likely to read the next book in the series and reserve continuing the series after finishing each subsequent title. Like many ‘romance series’ each book is tied up in a nice little bow at the end, very much unlike the majority of high fantasy series… IYKYK. 

My favorite thing about The House Witch is that our main witchy character is male! And that’s just a breath of diversity that I needed during the month that’s made for witches.

~Ashley

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Juno Dawson is a #1 bestselling Sunday Times novelist, a screenwriter, a journalist, and a columnist for Attitude Magazine. Before her adult fantasy debut with Her Majesty’s Royal Coven Trilogy, the British author wrote such global bestsellers as This Book is Gay and Clean, the first in the London Trilogy. She also writes for television and movies in the UK and US, and has the first official scripted Doctor Who Podcast, Doctor Who: Redacted. She currently lives in Brighton, is an occasional actress and model, is part of a queer cabaret collective known as Club Silencio, and was the face of Jecca Cosmetics Play Pots campaign. 

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven opens with five girls hiding in a treehouse. We meet these girls the eve before they were to swear their oaths to HMRC, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven; when Helena, Niamh and her twin Ciara, Elle, and Leonie would stop being girls and become witches. Then we jump 25 years to present day where Helena is leading HMRC as High Priestess, Elle is a full time nurse and mother, Leonie has organized her own coven for POC called Diaspora, Niamh is a veterinarian living in the town they grew up in, and Ciara has been in a coma for years after she was on ‘the wrong side’ of the civil war where a warlock called forth demons to overthrow HMRC and all it stands for. But, even though the final traitor has been just caught by HMRC, the oracles are in a tizzy about another evil, the prophesied Sullied Child, a boychild who will call forth Leviathan and destroy the world, witchkind, and mundanes alike. When Helena brings Niamh to meet the imprisoned Sullied Child, all Niamh can see is a fifteen year old boy, alone, and scared of his powers he knows nothing about. Niamh decides to bring him to her home, away from HMRC to teach him how to control his talents, all while also teaching Elle’s daughter, Holly, who had recently come into her own magic.

The magic of Dawson’s writing is that she brings the struggles of the real world and puts a spotlight on them with women who are more powerful than men. What is it like for Elle to be married to a man who doesn’t know she’s a witch with magical healing powers? Or, like what it means for Leonie to create a coven, a safe space, for witches of color that goes against the hierarchy and magic rules of HMRC. What is the value of a secret if a sentient witch could read your mind? And what is the place of trans-witches within and outside of HMRC, what does it  mean to be a ‘real witch’?

I can’t wait to pick up book two in the Her Majesty’s Royal Coven Trilogy, The Shadow Cabinet, which was released in June of this year. Book three doesn’t yet have a release date, but I’ll be looking forward to that one as well. I’m giving Her Majesty’s Royal Coven 4.5 rounded up to 5 stars. I will probably be re-reading it as a refresher before book 3 comes out, but I definitely don’t love the feeling of being dangled towards book two so imminently.

What do you do when you start a series of books that aren’t complete?!

~Ashley

Readers, I’m not sure what is happening, but color me excited that Ashley is the one here saying a probable rereading refresher is in our future!  Ashley gave a fantastic synopsis of the plot, and I want to talk about bit more about the themes included in this magical realism title.  But first, y’all I am SO here for witches living among us making things happen on the DL.  I am here for a chunk of society where women are in charge for a change, and I am here for a thorough exploration of power of all kinds.  While I am here for all of it, all of it at once, and more, makes for a lot in a book.  

I think perhaps I am experiencing some expectation fail with  Her Majesty’s Royal Coven.   Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it, and am looking forward to book two (even if the ending was eyeroll inducing), and will 1000% be joining Ashley on this rereading before book three.  However, I wanted a deeper exploration of the relationship of the friends, or more humorous dialogue, or perhaps fewer themes going on at once so there could be a deeper exploration of one or two.  Perhaps some of this is coming, but perhaps not.  Either way, this is good data for me because I wanted more character development here, and Her Majesty’s Royal Coven is very focused on action, even with all the character-driven themes.  

Here two paths diverge in a wood, and I’m taking the one where Her Majesty’s Royal Coven gets 3.5 stars, which I’m rounding to three.  The writing was good, the plot was fantastic, but it left me wanting.  I’m interested in book two and what Dawson does next (book three and beyond), but other than in preparation for subsequent titles, I won’t be revisiting this title.

What is a book that helped you learn about yourself as a reader?

~Nikki 

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