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Praise for The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

“Mandanna crafts a cast of winningly quirky characters, each with their own part to play in Mika’s path to belonging. . . . This charming romantic fantasy is a gem.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Sangu Mandanna spins a bewitching tale of found family, magic, and the power of love. Dark humor and bright writing abound in The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, and readers are sure to be charmed.”

—Award-winning author Suleikha Snyder

“Full of endearing characters, romance, and found family, it’s the cozy magical romance you’ve been waiting for. I absolutely adored it!”

—Tasha Suri, author of The Jasmine Throne

“Adorably witty, and features an endearing cast of characters and a wonderfully tricky and romantic plot.”

—Louisa Morgan, author of A Secret History of Witches

“This gorgeously cozy romantic fantasy sparkles with real magic, love, and joy. A perfect comfort read.”

—Stephanie Burgis, author of Scales and Sensibility and Snowspelled

OTHER TITLES BY SANGU MANDANNA

the celestial trilogy

A Spark of White Fire

House of Rage and Sorrow

A War of Swallowed Stars

The Lost Girl

Color Outside the Lines

Kiki Kallira Breaks a Kingdom

Kiki Kallira Conquers a Curse

Dedication

To Steve, because it’s past time I dedicated one of these to you

CHAPTER ONE

The Very Secret Society of Witches met on the third Thursday of every third month, but that was just about the only thing that never changed. They never met in the same place twice; the last meeting, for instance, had been in Belinda Nkala’s front room and had involved freshly baked scones, and the one before that had been in the glorious sunshine of Agatha Jones’s garden. This meeting, on a cold, wet October afternoon, happened to be taking place on a tiny, abandoned pier in the Outer Hebrides.

A pier. In the Outer Hebrides. In October.

Of course, they weren’t actually called the Very Secret Society of Witches. They weren’t called anything at all, which was why Mika Moon had decided to come up with a name for them herself. She had cycled through several alternatives first, like the League of Extraordinary Witches and the Super Secret Society of Witchy Witches. She was still rather fond of the latter.

The ridiculous names were mostly to annoy Primrose, the ancient and very proper head of the group, a position Primrose had presumably bestowed upon herself at some point in the past hundred years or so. (This might have been something of an exaggeration on Mika’s part, but it was impossible to tell how old Primrose really was. She wouldn’t say.)