Cecelia and Kate series

## Genre Information

Alternate History
Young Adult

Historical Fantasy
Fantasy Romance

 (Series Content Ratings Click on Explicit Ratings for details.)

## About the Series

* **Genres:** Alternate History, Fantasy Romance
* **Theme:** Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country
* **Narrative style**: 1st person perspective, alternating between Cecelia and Kate in letter format.

## Series Description

The authors tell these stories from the first-person perspectives of cousins Kate and Cecelia (and, in the third book, two additional characters), who recount their adventures in magic and polite society. These works are unusual in modern fiction in being epistolary novels, written using the style of the letter game.

After hearing of a game called “The Letter Game,” Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer decided to have a go — each took on the persona of two young women in a more magically flavoured 1800’s, and wrote to each other concerning their activities. Patricia Wrede plays the role of Cecelia Rushton, living in the country and somewhat envious of her cousin Kate Talgarth (Caroline Stevermer) who is being presented to Society in London. And so the correspondence began, each woman drawing on the magical angle of their created world as well as a ‘Jane Austen’ flavour, so tell each other of the gradually more dangerous escapades that they both get up to.

## Books in order

1. Sorcery & Cecelia: Or, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (The Cecelia and Kate Novels Book 1): Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country (1988, reprinted 2003)
2. The Grand Tour: Or, The Purloined Coronation Regalia (The Cecelia and Kate Novels Book 2) or The Purloined Coronation Regalia: Being a Revelation of Matters of High Confidentiality and Greatest Importance, Including Extracts from the Intimate Diary of a Noblewoman and the Sworn Testimony of a Lady of Quality (2004)
3. The Mislaid Magician: Or, Ten Years After (The Cecelia and Kate Novels Book 3): Being the Private Correspondence Between Two Prominent Families Regarding a Scandal Touching the Highest Levels of Government and the Security of the Realm (2006)

* *Magic Below Stairs* (2010) was written by Caroline Stevermer alone, and is set in the same universe after *The Grand Tour*, but before *The Mislaid Magician*. It follows the character Frederick Lincoln as a child in the house of the Schofields.
* The first two books in this series (*Sorcery and Cecelia* and *The Grand Tour*) were published in an omnibus edition, *Magicians of Quality*, in 2005.

## World Building

### Setting

1st and 3rd books = England countryside and London, 2nd book Various other countries visited on a Grand tour

### World

Alternate 19th Century England and Europe with Magic

At the beginning of the first book, Katherine Talgarth ("Kate") and her beautiful younger sister Georgina have been taken by their Aunt Charlotte Rushton from Rushton (in Essex) to London to experience part of the Season. Kate's parents, George Talgarth and Celia Rushton, have both died at least five years before. Kate's favorite cousin, Cecelia Rushton ("Cecy"), has been left at home with her brother Oliver and their father, the antiquarian Arthur Rushton, at Rushton Manor. Oliver and Cecy's mother died when Cecy was quite young. Their father's other unmarried sister, Aunt Elizabeth Rushton, lives with them at Rushton Manor.

### Protagonist

Kate
Is in London experiencing the season
Cecelia
Stays in the country

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Patricia Wrede Wikipedia
2. ↑ [1]