This was a delightful book! Generally happy and cozy, "The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches" had "House in the Cerulean Sea" vibes with a hint of "The Guncle", but more 'adult' than either.

Absolutely LOVED this book!! It’s definitely one of me new all time favorites. Quirky, funny, and heart-warming, I found this book nearly impossible to put down.

Mika is the perfect sunshiny character and Jamie the perfect grumpy librarian. Their slow developing romance was perfectly paced and sweet.

I loved too that this book didn’t shy away from real issues - like homophobia and racism - and how the reality of those things in our world can isolate and (quite severely) hurt people.

All this to say, I will be yelling about this book to anyone who will listen for the foreseeable future.

Ohhh this book is wonderful! Honestly, it just *sparkles* with magic and fun, warmth and sweetness and joy, and even the funniest parts are underpinned by real emotional truth. Imagine the girls from Ballet Shoes with magic as their gift. The heroine of the book is a sunshine-y (but deeply lonely) Mary Poppins figure who comes to work as their temporary tutor - but falls in love with the grumpy (and deeply loving) librarian who's their adopted parent, becoming part of their wonderful, magical, and eccentric found family. The romance plot is wonderfully swoony, but there's just as much emotion tied into the way Mika finds a home and family of her own - and the writing style sparkles too, full of charm and wit as well as moments of piercing emotional insight.

Full review posted to links after embargo.

This was an enjoyable, quick read. The magic system is fairly straightforward, and there’s a great, diverse cast of characters, even if the children just come off like short adults at points. It just didn’t all coalesce for me. It’s still unclear to me why the witches have to live in such solitude, and why the humans can never know of them. And, the premise of the book is that all witches are motherless. Anyone who gives birth to a witch dies, whether it’s an unknowing magic-less person or a knowing witch. With the awareness that giving birth would kill them, what witch would choose to do so? It just makes very little sense.

This book feels like a hayride through the changing leaves in the fall, cozy and a seasonal tradition you do every year, even if you’re not really sure why. It’s a great pickup for a long weekend or an autumn getaway.

From the publisher: A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family—and a new love—changes the course of her life.

Settle down on your comfy sofa with a nice cup of tea and an animal companion and sink into the restful comfort to be found in The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. In the author’s acknowledgments, Mandanna notes, “When I started writing this book, we were eight months into the pandemic and all I wanted to work on was a warm, cozy, romantic story about magic and family. A story that was, above all things, about love and human connection.” It’s safe to say that she succeeded in her goal.

The main character is Mika Moon, an orphan who was born in India but raised in England. Through a series of unlikely events, she finds herself hired as a tutor for three unrelated young witches of color by their nonmagical guardians. The household includes two gay men in their 80s who have been a couple for many long years, a middle-aged housekeeper, and a suspicious 30ish librarian who ran away from his own unhappy family as a teenager. Mika arrives with her energetic dog and her magical pond of fish. After Mika unpacks way more belongings than could possibly have fit in her car, one of the girls says approvingly, “That was some excellent Mary Poppins shit right there.” (p. 47 of the ARC)

For Good Reasons, witches all over the world avoid each other’s company, meeting only occasionally and in secrecy. This is a safe practice, but one that leads to a lot of loneliness. Mika is both lonely and afraid to get attached to this unusual household, and Secrets Are Being Kept that will cause stress and anguish before we arrive at our happily ever after.

I loved the oh-so-English setting and the way the magic was visible as gold dust. There’s nothing especially original about this book, and the plot moves along a mostly predictable course, but it’s a lovely found family story. You’ll wish you too could move in to Nowhere House.

I read an advance reader copy of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches from Netgalley, and the Galesburg Public Library will own it once it is released on August 23.

A sweet and silly story, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches combines an intriguing system of magic (which I'd love to see more of) with a fairly ordinary love story. Things wrapped up a bit too neatly and/or easily in the end for me, but I had a good time reading this book.

If the state of the world has you agitated, definitely pick up this soothing, warm story about magic and found family finding each other. I wasn't sure what I expected when I picked this book up, but reading it felt like getting a warm cup of cocoa on a snowy day and snuggling in blankets-just about perfect.

Mika has been alone her whole life, but through social media she has found something of a way to connect. One day she gets a very interesting message, and something inside her pushes her to respond. Mandanna's book is one that touches on the fears that so many of us share, of not fitting in and of being alone. Add in some magic and healthy doses of humor and love, and you definitely have a winner.

A really fun book about witches, magic and finding your family. Fabulous characters and laugh out loud scenes will have you wishing you could move into Nowhere House too.

I fell in love with this book and that extremely unconventional, batsh*t crazy, entertaining family!

A lonely, gold hearted girl, creator of magical positions, 31 years old Mika Moon is a member of Secret Society of Witches. She’s an orphan raised by Primrose Beatrice Everly: the leader of their very discreet foundation. Quick correction: she was raised by nannies and tutors whose memories have been erased as soon as they’ve found out her secret abilities. Primrose had strict rules and she barely talked about Mika’s family of witches who lost their lives.

Mika get used to be lonely, not spending time at a place more than a month, not making intimate connections and lasting bounds. But one of her videos she’s made for YouTube for having fun attracted someone’s attention who knows lot about witches. The man’s name is Ian Kubo-Hawthorn, an eccentric retired actor in his 80’s : a member of Nowhere house gang. And he’s ready to make an offer to Mika that she doesn’t want to refuse.

He sends her a message as witch wanted and that picks interest of Mika who drives her Broomstick ( not literally, she named her car like that) and she meets with Motley Crue, inhabitants of Nowhere House.
Let’s introduce all of them one by one:
Ken, bald, Japanese, a man who is kind and nice at the same time, in his 70’s, creating magic in garden.
I already mentioned ball of fire, sarcastic, energetic, vivid Ian, who is Ken’s husband, living in a cottage next to Nowhere house.
Lucie, motherly, kind, caring, housekeeper in her late fifties.
Jamie, Irish charm, in mid-thirties, graduated from Cambridge, brooding, introvert librarian who is not happy about Mika’s arrival.

And three little magical orphan girls: Rosette ( oldest of them, 10, black, social, friendly) , Terracotta( 8, rebellious, Vietnamese), Altamira ( 7, Palestinian)

The owner of the Nowhere House is archeologist Lilian Nowhere who is busy, buried her head in her secret projects, adopted those girls but she doesn’t have time to take care of them or teach them how they control their powers. Yes, Lillian is a witch just like the girls!

And here comes Ian’s offer: he wants to hire Mika as a tutor to prevent an upcoming disaster. A few months later Edward Foxhaven will stop by at the house to extract important paperwork from Lillian’s office and during that meeting they don’t want Edward catch any suspicious activity from little girls ( like putting house on fire or flying around the garden) If he realizes they are not normal little orphan girls, he can call the authorities. And Lillian cannot meet him at house because she has more important things to do!

Mika finds this situation very dangerous because she’s thought that witches should stay separated because their accumulated powers can be dangerous and if Primrose finds out this situation she does anything in power to separate those girls.

But she already empathizes with them and the Nowhere House members including hostile Jamie can be her family she’s never had in her life. So she accepts to give it a try.
And the fun actually begins. Do you want to know what will happen? Just grab a copy and enjoy your full ride!

Overall: very eccentric, huggable, vivid characters, heartwarming chapters, romance, magic, secrets, entertaining schemes: I’m sold! This is so amazing! I hope I can read more secret society books in near future!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

Please read this book. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches was a wonderful book. Found family, witches, love, and wonderful character development. Beautiful story.

Delightful! Full of humor, heart, and whimsy, this book felt like coming home. I was enchanted by every single character, but especially Mika, Jamie, and the three children: Rosetta, Altamira, and Terracotta. Every character is beautifully realized, the story is zany but grounded in familiar realities and struggles, and the romance burns slowly but wholeheartedly.

Can’t wait to read what Sangu Mandanna writes next — I’ll cheerfully be diving into her backlist in the meantime. More books like this, please!

Wonderfully entertaining story. It's about friendship, loyalty, love and power.
I couldn't put it down. Like taking a vacation in my head. I loved it.

A fun and sweet witchy romance. I hope the author decides to write more in this world.
Some bits are a bit predictable, but that is part of thd fun of this type of romance book. We all know that there will be a happy ending.

This was so magical and wholesome! The premise of TVSSOIW sounded so cool--South Asian witch MC?!--but the story was so much more than just a very secret society of irregular witches. It's about love, acceptance, community, and finding a home even if it's completely non-traditional. The found family aspect of this story was so so beautiful. Our three young witches, Altamira, Rosetta, and Terracotta, were so adorable and I loved how unique each of their personalities were. These three, along with Mika, were so so funny (there's something about British humor that gets me every time LOL). Additionally, the dynamics of everyone in Nowhere House--from Ian to Ken to Lucie to Jamie--were all so much fun to follow and it was honestly just so apparent how much love and compassion ran through this family.

I also loved the romance between Mika and Jamie! The romance in this novel was the perfect amount in my opinion--it didn't feel overbearing at all and didn't detract from the main plot of the novel. The way that both Mika and Jamie supported each other and helped each other heal from their past traumas was super sweet.

I think the only reason I rated this 4.25 stars instead of 5 is that the plot was a little predictable at times. I was able to guess the plot twists in the novel pretty easily. I still definitely recommend this book though for a cozy, charming read and I'll definitely be picking up Sangu's other novels next!

"The Very Secret Society" is a lovely romp of a book. Sweet without being cloying, just the right amount of tension and the perfect amount of romance. I loved this and couldn't put it down once I'd started. Highly recommended!

This is a perfectly fine, fun book. It reminds me of a grown up Eva Ibbotson book with the simplicity of the story. A little forgettable, but not a bottom tier title

A decent story for this type of book. Might get a wider audience without swearing. Seems like there could be more to this story. Wouldn't mind a sequel. RC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

A delightful story of learning to trust others, as well as yourself. By helping three very young witches, Mika finds a sense of belonging and realizes that her guardian was not quite the ogre she had always believed.

This book was the perfect cozy romance that I needed. It was an adorable, funny, and lighthearted fun read that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Everything about this book was great; it features a diverse, lovable cast, a wonderful found family, and a cute magic system. 5/5 stars!