Mistress of Birds

Thalia wants to make an impact.

Thalia’s life is full of artists, authors, and other creative minds, but she’s barely keeping herself together. After yet another rejection of her writing, she’s willing to keep an eye out on a remote home on the edge of Dartmoor while her reclusive great-aunt takes a rest cure.

Adam hasn’t been the same since the Great War.

Adam’s family have long since run out of tolerance for his continuing shell shock. His uncle’s broken leg is the perfect excuse to get Adam out of the house – at least he can make himself useful fetching and carrying. Adam’s not at all sure he can be any sort of help to anyone. When he visits his uncle’s apple orchard, he’s even more confused by what he finds – and no one else seems to find the late-ripening apples at all unusual.

The house has its own secrets.

At first, the house seems a pleasant enough retreat for Thalia. The housekeeper and maid are competent, if distant. The food is wonderful, and she didn’t have to buy or cook it herself. But there’s the odd noise from the attic, the locked rooms, the ageless photographs. When she meets Adam, they at least agree that something is odd. Can they discover the secret and change their futures?

Mistress of Birds is the seventh book of the Mysterious Powers series, exploring the institutions of Albion during and after the Great War. All of Celia Lake’s Albion books exploring the magical community of the British Isles can be read in any order.

It is full of gothic mystery, feeling out of place, apples, birds, and how to move forward into a new stage of life. Enjoy this charming romantic fantasy set in 1927 with a happily ever after ending!