The House on Durrow Street is the sequel to Magicians and Mrs Quent and 2nd volume in the trilogy; despite its 700 page length, i was a bit upset that the novel ended - though the ending was fitting - and i really, really want the announced trilogy ending Master of Heathcrest ?? now

While the first installment had elements of both Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre, this one is very original, moving away completely from the classics and into pure fantasy with magic, illusions and "witchcraft" and quite a lot of it.

There are three threads as before - one follows Ivy who now is restoring the House on Durrow Street to live there with her husband and sisters, and the house itself is a powerful magical locus with lots of stuff inside; accepted now at the highest levels of society - though few know her powers and even fewer her mysterious background of which one issue is still a mystery with possibly large implications - Ivy discovers that life at that level can be both interesting and frustrating, while friends and foes are not so easy to discern

Than we follow Mr. Rafferdy who is now in a funk for obvious reasons, though he tries to keep himself busy attending the Assembly for his ailing Lord father; later he gets himself sucked into magic again and of course he gets back into Ivy's orbit despite his trying to avoid her - after all the pair of them: magician and witch is almost unstoppable by the bad guys.

The third thread follows Garytt and Dercy and to my surprise it took lots of pages was quite developed to a pretty surprising end.

Dark times are announced for Altania and maybe the world and while Ivy and Rafferdy may save the day one more time here, the next time the enemy may be just too powerful. Well, we will see that of course.

The House on Durrow Street is one of those novels that stay with you for a long time and I plan to read it several times more. Again, I just hated that it ended and there are few books i felt that strongly about