Stephanie Burgis - Magical Books for Ages Ten to Fifteen

The year is 1803; the place, England.

Jane Austen has just sold her first novel. Britain is back at war with Napoleon. Genteel young ladies all across the country are scheming to find the perfect husbands, and highwaymen lurk in the wild forests.

Magic is far too scandalous to be discussed in respectable society.

This is the Regency era. For wealthy young ladies, it is a constant round of balls and parties designed with one purpose in mind: to find a suitable husband.

Of course, it's a hard thing to attract a marriage proposal (or even to fall in love in the first place) when you only ever meet men at dances, and are only ever allowed to dance two sets with the same gentleman...and what about young ladies like Kat's older sisters, whose family can't even afford to send them to London for a Season in town?

Poor young ladies need husbands even more than wealthy young ladies do - but it's much, much harder for them to find any.

Sitting in a tiny village in the middle of Yorkshire certainly isn't the way to meet eligible young men - especially when the only other respectable families in the village all heartily disapprove of you because of your notorious mama.

In moments like these, a young lady can be truly grateful for one wonderful institution: country house parties. Fashionable ladies and gentlemen love to retire to the country for as little as a weekend or as long as a month, invited by a generous hostess who fills the time with a round of entertainments. Staying all together in a grand mansion, single young ladies and gentlemen can flirt over the breakfast and dinner tables and take long walks together in the afternoon. They can get to know each other better before they decide whether or not they really want to be married.

Better yet, provincial young ladies like Kat's sisters can finally meet interesting men who've come all the way from London - even aristocrats, if they are very lucky! They can attract men they would never ever have even met outside the houseparty, men who don't even seem to mind the fact that their mother was a scandalous witch.

Of course, not all those men are as respectable as they seem.

Some gentlemen are positively sinister - and when a man is rumored to have murdered his first wife, accepting his offer of marriage can be a truly fatal error.

Sometimes, a young lady needs magical help, no matter how scandalous that might be.

...So it's good for her older sisters, all in all, that Kat isn't a proper lady!

Note: To find out more about the sadly unmagical real Regency world, follow the links I've supplied in my Frequently Asked Questions.