I’ve almost got my ‘started before 2019 began’ pile cleared out. This is the first of the final four: Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Legends.
This book was a bit of a surprise in a few ways, most of them good. This was book 4 in a series I was starting to get annoyed with. Some structural patterns and a seriously pet-peeving plot development cliché seemed to be developing. I was ready to give up. I’ve mentioned the structure in reviews of previous volumes, but basically there was part 1 of main thread with central pair together, side story interlude with troublemaker getting into trouble, part 2 of main thread with pair back together. Problem two was that Lily and Sebastian, the heroes, were very obviously being set up to becoming romantically involved, which almost always ends up ruining the rest of the series as it did for any number of tv series featuring a female-male partnership.
The main team of Lily and Sebastian have several problems at the beginning of the book: they have to deal with the hopefully temporary loss of Madam Barrington (and figure out how to rid her of a curse), get to Morgan LeFay before Lily’s evil father John, and stop Morgan from trying to take over the world assuming they do find her and wake her up. Lily is also a bit worried about her half siblings, one of whom is showing signs of wanting out of their father’s control. There is a trip to England to find Morgan, visits to Oxford (the description of the Bodleian and the Duke Humphries reading room are not done justice, and said reading room is also no longer in use as it was originally designed), and exploration of Tintagel Castle ruins.
The new characters really help elevate the mostly standard adventure-type story. We see the most of Cyril and Hawkins. Hawkins is a Jeeves-like character with the addition of some serious defensive and anti-magic skills, in spite of being mundane himself. Cyril is a professor at Oxford who has the knowledge of Old Brittonic Lily needs to read Morgan’s journal and figure out exactly where she is and how to get to her. I kind of wish we got to see a little more of Cyril; he insists that he be allowed to accompany Lily and company on the adventure, but he’s just occasionally there and participates very little. Hawkins is just fun to see and hear in action, and you know there’s a ton more to him. We also get to meet some of Sebastian’s extended family, who are opposite of Lily’s in many ways, most particularly in terms of being decent people. George and Elizabeth are a lot of fun to see and the hints about them are intriguing. There’s also Emmaline, the steampunkish tailor who makes Lily the adventuring outfit of her dreams. There’s also Yuki a fae fox spirit who decides to help the heroes for no apparent reason other than boredom. Yuki and Sir Kipling together are actually pretty funny, as neither one likes the other.
The structure does include a section focusing on Sebastian, but his time it’s not a stand-alone, and it explains his magic background and backstory in enough depth that he actually gains some roundness as a character. And this section is far more integrated into the main story, as it introduces Thiriel, a fey Queen to whom Sebastian has a connection. Thiriel ends up playing a part in the final confrontation with Morgan and John, and her influence on Sebastian as a character is welcome relief from the goofball pal.
At the very end, the story finally gets back to Lily and Sebastian as a possible couple, and I have to say, for all the should I-shouldn’t I tell him/her on both their parts, the actual turn towards resolution was surprisingly well done, not to mention tasteful. Any more would be spoilers. I might actually want to read the last two or three volumes once they come out.