I quite enjoyed this book! It's a little bit mystery, a little bit fantasy, there's a little magic and a little romance, all set in the early 1800's England.

The story takes place around cousins Cecelia and Kate, one goes to London for the summer, the other remains in the country. Their correspondence begins ordinarily enough (what tea party had been attended, or the trouble with hand-me-down dresses), but you get a sense very early on that Cecelia and Kate are kindred spirits and that there's mo More...

When Cecy is forced to stay behind in the countryside when her cousin (and dearest friend) Kate goes to London for all the parties and social connections of the season, a correspondence ensues to keep one another informed of all the delicious goings-on of friends and family members, fashion trends and the like. However, they are also intelligent young women and soon the plot begins to thicken as two seemingly unrelated "suspicious incidents" involving maddening-yet-charming young men and bouts o More...

Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer first published Sorcery and Cecelia under that that title in 1988. In recent years, thanks to reprints with shiny new cover art by Scott M. Fischer in the case of the edition I read as well as two new sequels, this book has regained popularity and visibility. Aside from that, one of the most important things to know about this book is its alternate title: The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Variou More...

Because Hayes said it best, "I need something FUN to read!"

In an alternate Regency-era England where magic is real, the adventure was fun and so was the reading. I plan to read the remaining books in the series.

Fun, fun, fun.

A perfectly charming little epistolary tale with a number of problems. This is the story of Kate and Cecelia (does this spelling of the name bother anyone else? I had to type that name three times before I got it right, it seem so unnatural!) two cousins who are seperated for a few months while one experiences the London Season, and the other stays on their country estate, and write letters back and forth to each other. Kate falls into the path of an evil magician, Cecelia trips over related mag More...

I enjoyed this book. It's light and entertaining enough to be worth reading despite a few major flaws. To anyone who picks up this book, I would suggest first reading the "Afterword" at the end of the book (it really should have been a "Foreword"). It explains how the book came to be, doesn't contain any plot spoilers, and I think had I read the book with that knowledge I might have enjoyed it even more. My main complaints were, first, that the language in the book is a little too contrived. The More...

Elisabeth Bennet meets Harry Potter. Well, sort of. I loved, loved, loved this Jane Austen-esque novel that follows the format of letters written between two cousins. Actually, that is how the book was originally written. The two authors adopted the personas and wrote letters to each other, creating the story.

Being Jane Austen-esque, it is of course a romance with much attention paid to social etiquettes and proprieties (and improprieties). However, the magic is largely the intrigue that is thro More...

I stumbled across this book on the bookmobile and absolutely loved it. The entire book is written in letters. there are actually two writers and they each took a character and built the book by reacting to what the other wrote. I think it started as a game.

It's period piece (the content of the letters made me think of Jane Austin with the balls and social gatherings) set in an alternative England where magic is a common part of society. One of the girls, Kate, goes to town for the season and wr More...

The one where the madcap cousins stumble upon sorcerous plots in Austen times, which they describe to one another in letters.

This was charming -- I devoured it in two days and looked around for more -- and yet it must be said that throughout the entire book, I never did manage to tell Kate and Cecy apart without checking the salutation on the letter; their voices, their flaws, their virtues, were so similar that they didn't really register as different people.

I have loved all 5(?) of Patricia C. Wrede's books that I have read, so when this deal was posted on Dear Author, and when the commenters had such effusive praise for the book, I absolutely had to get it. It was well worth the getting.

Set in regency London, in a world where magic exists alongside the church and all the trappings of English society that we know of, the story unfolds in letters two cousins, Cecelia and Kate send to each other about their lives, since they are separated for the su More...

YA Fiction. I had a lot of trouble getting past the first three pages of this -- it was exposition heavy and did not grab my attention -- but once I gave it another shot, I found it utterly charming. Cousins Cecelia and Kate write each other letters during the summer of 1817, while Kate is in London for the Season and Cecelia is stuck at home in the country. This is another of those Englands that just has magic lying around to spare, no big thing, it's just there, good for fighting off Napoleon More...

This was very well-written and had some excellent quotes. Thankfully the two girl's situations were different enough that I could tell them apart, but they did not 'talk' differently enough for me to believe they were separate people. The romance was also predictable. But it was very good and funny and had a very interesting plot. It sounds like a lot of fun to write, too.

This book was pretty much made for me. I love epistolary novels (and had played the letter game before reading this), I love light-hearted, humorous stories, I love SF/F, and I love the Regency period.

There are problems with the book, of course - the letter game doesn't make for a perfect novel structure, though I was stunned at how well the two authors here managed to pull it off. And the plot is definitely a bit light. But the voices are delightful and top-notch, and the book is a just a real More...

An enjoyably epistolic fantasy the writer started with no plot or background just writing each other a letter in character. the a setting a Regency romance with with added magic, When a plot emerged and so they cleaned it up and published it.[return]This was obviously a lot of fun for the participants they continually strive to outdo themselves on regency language mores and background. while doing their best to help each others respective plot lines along. rather than trampling them. It does not More...

Sorcery and Cecelia was a fun fast-paced book. Obviously written for a young adult audience, yet still captivating enough to make me read the other books in the trilogy.

This is the first book in the series in which Kate and Cecelia are seperated by distance in England and must coorespond through letters. There were times that I began to tire of the letters, but it was fun to continually view the story from two different perspectives. Kate and Cecelia find themselves caught up in a world where m More...

Delightful! This was a great find! Having enjoyed the writing of Patricia C. Wrede in a previous outing ("Book of Enchantments")I had no doubt that I would enjoy this one. The only question in my mind was how much of Ms. Wrede's writing would appear since this book is a collaboration with Caroline Stevermer who I was totally unfamiliar with. This combination of writing talent worked extremely well together. This book emerged from a "device" called the Letter Game (aka Persona Letters and Ghost L More...

Two romances, two mysteries, and two captivating heroines all in one book. Written as a letter game between Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, these two excellent young adult fantasy writers created a captivating Regency England where magic is a part of life and a misunderstood science.

Kate Talgarth and Cecelia Rushton are two Young Ladies of Quality who are cousins and were inseparable until this London Season. Split apart by their aunts, who fear for the safety of London if the two girl More...

Sorcery & Cecelia, a combined romance and fantasy novel, was a fun read. Kate and her sister Georgina are in London for the Season, staying with their Aunt Charlotte. Georgina is charming and beautiful and sought after by wonderful male suitors. Kate is just as charming, not quite as attractive and wonderfully curious. The book chronicles the correspondence between Kate and her cousin, Cecy. Cecy remains behind in Rushton Manor with her Aunt Elizabeth. A wonderful adventure/romance ensues fo More...

Note: the below is an excerpt from the blog my friend and I do (http://persyandarty.blogspot.com), where we review books every week. Please check it out.

Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country.

Historical fiction set in an alternate England, told in the form of letters written by two cousins to each other. Please tell me I'm not the only one this appeals to.

Katherine Talgarth, or Kate, is taken to London with her younger More...

I'd been meaning to read something by Patricia Wrede, so when I saw Gail Carriger recommend this one, it gave me reason enough to pick it up at the library. I admit to having a few moments of frustration wondering why Cece and Kate hadn't figured certain things out yet. Because it's an exchange of letters, the pace is slower and we're hearing everything well after the fact which belies some of the suspense, but then again, because it's in letters, we only have to read through the highlights of e More...

Liked the plot. Liked the characters and their capers. But I had a problem with the epistolary method. This could have been a really neat novel if written in the traditional way. As it was, I wanted it to be over.

WRITING METHOD:
The entire book consists of letters between Cecy and Kate - an epistolary novel. Therefore most things are “told” not shown, but that is the nature of letters. Each letter has a chatty or gossipy feel talking about clothes, family, friends, and neighbors. The letters also More...

The full title is Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country. GoodReads seems to be listing this as written by Patricia Wrede. It was actually a collaboration between Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. I read that it started out as a game, with them taking turns writing chapters, and dropping them off at each other's house, and then they realized it could come together into a More...

In a slightly alternative England just after the Napoleonic Wars, where magic and wizardry are real, two cousins start exchanging letters. Kate Talgarth has gone to London for the Season with her beautiful sister Georgina. Her cousin, Cecelia Rushton, remains at home in the country. Mysterious things soon start happening to both of them, starting with a strange woman trying to poison Kate with hot chocolate under the belief she is a man named Thomas - and they soon find themselves caught up in a More...

I’m usually not a fan of epistolary novels. I enjoy epistolary content when it’s supplemental to the book (like the chapter headers in Tad Williams’ Otherland series, which I shamelessly copied in Better Days) but it’s usually a bit gimmicky for me. But a book that was written organically as a fictional correspondence between two authors? I had no idea what to think! On the one hand, it’s still a letter-novel, and one without a preplanned structure at that. On the other hand, it’s more or less a More...

Sorcery & Cecelia is an epistolary novel conveyed by cousins Kate and Cecelia who live in two different regions within England though maintain their association by communicating through mail. The tale is set in front of a good versus evil backdrop; Thomas Schofield and James Tarleton are wronged by Miranda Tanistry and Sir Hilary and, with the meddlesome aid of Kate and Cecilia, are determined to bring the dastardly villains to justice.
The author rightly decided to divulge the story through More...

Review:Sorcery & Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede
4 STARS This is an interesting background to writing a novel. They played a game called a letter game and would write letters back and forth in character and not mention plot. Now days if kids did that it would be short texts. I enjoyed it but would have been better if I read it instead of listening to my kindle. It broke and I could not look at screen if I was lost.(did not handle evacuating very well.) Thier is nothing in hear that is objection More...

What a fun book! I must admit though, when I first started reading I wasn't as into it as I wanted to be. Especially when there were names like Fitzwilliam, Elizabeth, Charlotte....I was like, hold on here. What is this? Pride and Prejudice the sequel? And it was a little hard to keep track of things. But, after I continued reading for a bit, I was immediately sucked in! I love the idea of these two girls corresponding back and forth through letters; and it's even cooler that each girl is writte More...

Kate and Cecilia, affectionately known as Cecy, share an impressive ability to wander into trouble, whether at home or while in London for the Season. We get to experience their shenanigans as they are related to each other through the letters they exchange. They remind me of the emails I swap with my best friend who is living in Ireland for the year, which shows just how relatable they are. The cousins are feisty, just the way I like my heroines :-) . Their time apart starts innocuously enough, More...

I was delighted to discover when I finished "Sorcery and Cecilia" that the book had started its life as a game between the two authors, who developed two fictional personae and worked out the whole novel writing letters to one another. I think that the novel benefits and suffers from its source; there is a a spark and liveliness to it that I think (I hope?) comes from the excitement and fun of its making; but it also ultimately lacks the tender flesh and heart of a novel with only one author. It More...