Accessibility Tools

Web Accessibility plugin by DJ-Extensions.com
Skip to main content
Cover of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Turquoise and blue cover, top is a woman sitting on a broom, hovering over a house with an overgrown yard and a yellow car, and a man looking up at her while holding an armful of books. The yard has flowers, and the sky has stars and a moon. Cover of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Turquoise and blue cover, top is a woman sitting on a broom, hovering over a house with an overgrown yard and a yellow car, and a man looking up at her while holding an armful of books. The yard has flowers, and the sky has stars and a moon. Cover of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Turquoise and blue cover, top is a woman sitting on a broom, hovering over a house with an overgrown yard and a yellow car, and a man looking up at her while holding an armful of books. The yard has flowers, and the sky has stars and a moon. Cover of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Turquoise and blue cover, top is a woman sitting on a broom, hovering over a house with an overgrown yard and a yellow car, and a man looking up at her while holding an armful of books. The yard has flowers, and the sky has stars and a moon. Cover of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Turquoise and blue cover, top is a woman sitting on a broom, hovering over a house with an overgrown yard and a yellow car, and a man looking up at her while holding an armful of books. The yard has flowers, and the sky has stars and a moon. Cover of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Turquoise and blue cover, top is a woman sitting on a broom, hovering over a house with an overgrown yard and a yellow car, and a man looking up at her while holding an armful of books. The yard has flowers, and the sky has stars and a moon. Cover of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Turquoise and blue cover, top is a woman sitting on a broom, hovering over a house with an overgrown yard and a yellow car, and a man looking up at her while holding an armful of books. The yard has flowers, and the sky has stars and a moon.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

Written by alamancelibraries on . Posted in Book Reviews.

Cover of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Turquoise and blue cover, top is a woman sitting on a broom, hovering over a house with an overgrown yard and a yellow car, and a man looking up at her while holding an armful of books. The yard has flowers, and the sky has stars and a moon.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

Mandanna, Sangu. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. New York : Berkley, 2022.

Still craving a witchy read this fall?

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches is a cozy fantasy romance about an isolated witch and an unconventional found family in the English countryside battling forces that seek to tear them apart. Simmering with a love of magic and a dash of the grumpy-meets-sunshine trope, Sangu Mandanna crafts an enchanted story that will warm your heart like one of Mika Moon’s magical cups of tea. 

Mika Moon is a witch—which means she has spent most of her life alone, keeping her head down, unable to share this core part of herself with anyone outside of a small group of witches scattered across Britain she calls The Very Secret Society of Witches and its straitlaced leader, Primrose. No one can know she is a witch. No one does… except, when Mika posts videos online “pretending” to be a witch as an outlet for her loneliness, someone seems to take her claims seriously. 

An anonymous message is sent to Mika that begins with “WITCH WANTED,” begging her to travel to the secluded and mysterious estate of Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to use and control their magic. At first, she thinks it’s a joke. Even if it weren’t, it breaks one of the most important rules she’s grown up learning: stay away from other witches, because too many witches in one place cause their powers to mingle and draw unwanted attention. Mika goes anyway and becomes entangled in their lives as the clock is ticking down before the girls must be able to control their magic, else they would be taken away from Nowhere House. 

I easily fell in love with this motley cast of characters: Nowhere House’s jovial housekeeper (Lucie), a retired actor with a love for flamingo pink yarn (Ian), a gardener (Ken), three lovely little witches with big personalities that occasionally clash, and a grumpy librarian who is fiercely protective of the young girls and deeply distrusting of Mika (Jamie). 

As Mika warms up to the inhabitants of Nowhere House and finds herself getting attached, she is confronted with the reality that her time there is limited and that she cannot stay—no matter how much she wants it. Despite her painful past, Mika Moon finds the courage to fight for the people she loves and, more importantly, for herself. There’s a comfort in seeing these characters, each isolated in their own way, finding a place to belong and people to call home. 

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches shows us the healing power of letting yourself be truly loved and that the family you choose is its own little kind of magic. 

It is available as a physical copy through Alamance County Public Libraries as well as an ebook or audiobook via Libby. 

Sara Durbin is a Library Assistant at Graham Public Library. They can be reached at sdurbin@alamancelibraries.org.