Delightful characters, delightful world, ham-handed plotting. ( )

Alfreda and her cousin and teacher, Marta, visit Alfreda's home for the birth of Alfreda's new sister--and during this visit, Alfreda has an alarming and exhilarating encounter with a unicorn. As exciting and rewarding as this is, Marta is furious with the unicorn; it will make Alfreda far more visible to malignant forces. She needs more protection than she can currently provide for herself, and needs to fill the gap in her education where a knowledge of ritual magic should be.

Marta arranges for her to become a student at the Windward School, in faraway New York. The head of the school, Professor Livingston, is another of Alfreda's cousins, and she, Marta, and her mother will all trade services to the school to cover the cost of her tuition. Alfreda's share of this will be teaching the beginning herbal magic class.

Allie gets a bit of a break in this outing. Her challenges her are not vampires, werewolves, or evil sorcerers planning to steal her magic. One might almost say they're a bit more age-appropriate: going away to school for the first time, getting to know young people of very different backgrounds from her own, learning the social rules of a larger society, and studying subjects Marta and her mother couldn't teach her themselves. Indoor sanitary facilities and a version of hot and cold running water are new experiences for her. So is cooking as punishment duty, and cooking with a crew that mostly has never cooked before--although some have been taught how to create dinner menus and direct kitchen staff.

Much of the adventure here is the adventure of boarding school with a magical twist, but there are other things going on in the background, and Allie can no more avoid trouble than she can avoid breathing. She's just far too intelligent, inquisitive, and brave, not to mention impetuous.

This is a lot of fun. Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the author. ( )

This book was just as beautifully written as the first two and a pleasure to read. I just love this alternate history world so much; I also really love the characters and the magic. I will say that the covers for this series could use some serious help (but I guess just don't judge this series by its cover).

My biggest disappointment with this book is that so many intriguing new plot-lines start but nothing is resolved by the end of the book. If it was clear that there are going to be more books in the series I would be thrilled by how things developed! However, it looks like this is supposed to be the final book in the series which is really disappointing. Things were just starting to get really really interesting...

The tone for this book is much different than the first two. Alfreda is in a magic school most of the book dealing with a lot more people and a lot more social issues than she has dealt with previously. I still enjoyed the story a ton; but it was very different. There weren’t as many creepy encounters and as much things from the dark.

The world is broadened quite a bit as well in this book. We hear about events from new places and also hear more about Wild Magic and the world it comes from.

Overall I absolutely loved this book and ended up devouring it. However I was a bit disappointed that so many new plotlines were started and not resolved; hopefully we see another book in this series eventually to tie up all those issues. Aside from that issue, this was a delightful fantasy set in an alternate early America. I would recommend to fantasy fans. ( )

Third in the series. Still not as good as the first, but also close. Feels rushed somehow, with a lot of the backstory missing, as if the author has a grand design in her head that isn't shared with the readers.

Alfreda has been sent to her cousin's school to learn ritual magic, and of course social development. So we have all the normal school based magic stuff learning the rules and being an outsider - even though it's a magical school Alfreda's from the backwoods countryside rather than a sophisticated city. But she's a rugged independent confident girl and so not that fased by wearing the wrong coat - although having servants takes some getting used to. Her sudden inclusion as a spy for the teachers against a fellow school is unexpected and somewhat unbelievable - and also the part that is least explained. What or why the conflict is and how it came to be etc. We're just left in the dark.

Still exceptionally well written though with great characters that shine and make the most of the world around them, even if they're a bit Mary Sue at times. ( )