When dead enemies rise, grave matters of the heart, mind, and body clash in the fantastical fourth Whimbrel House novel by Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Charlie N. Holmberg.

Whimbrel House is changing. Merritt and Hulda are raising a family. Owein has signed a marriage contract with the magically compatible Lady Cora, a heavyweight of British nobility who’s an ocean away. And the lovely shape-shifting druid Fallon makes a distractingly fetching friend for Owein. But another change is in the air, and this time it’s something wicked.

The greatest wizard of the millennium, Silas Hogwood, is back—after five years dead. New body, same foul scent, and driven by madness and revenge. Owein, fearing he isn’t strong enough to fend off Silas, seeks Cora’s help and influence in England. Alarms ringing, Queen Victoria dispatches her League of Magicians, including her personal necromancer, to aid in Owein’s defense.

As magic, both good and evil, converges on Blaugdone Island, Owein realizes how harrowing the forces against them are. Combating them will require some digging—literally—for half-formed secrets of magic Hulda doesn’t want him to have. But no promise, lock, or government red tape will keep Owein from doing what’s necessary to protect those he loves. One way or another, Silas will only take Whimbrel House over Owein’s third dead body.

In a world where magic is real, but waning, Owein is a desirable entity. Having spent 220+ years as a magical house, his soul was forcibly transferred to a dog by the evil Silas Hogwood before Silas’ death; Owein then found himself in England with the plan to move his soul to a human body and marry him off into the British aristocracy. That was five years ago.  Owein received a human body, he signed a contract to marry Lady Cora when they both are eighteen and in the meantime he returned home to his beloved Blaugdone Island and Whimbrel House along with the people who have become his family - Merritt, his many-greats nephew, Merritt’s wife Hulda, their children and the Baptiste family along with Fallon, a Druid friend from Britain.  Time passed peacefully but as his eighteenth birthday approaches it appears Silas is not as dead as was reported and he is coming for all of them with revenge and murder in his heart.

Each of the previous books has focused primarily on one of the main characters - Merritt, Hulda or Owein. This time we see all the action from Owein’s point of view as well as him being the primary focus of the plot. Some of the plot left dangling at the end of the last book, such as what Myra is doing in the secret facility, are explained and we have the return of Silas as a vengeful enemy. Owein is torn between Cora and Fallon as well as worried about Silas’ return and the need to protect his family. The main action moves quickly in present time, well the alternate 1850s of this series, taking place in a bit over six weeks with explanatory flashbacks from Silas’ viewpoint sprinkled throughout.  I read this over the course of a day, unable to put it down as the action pulled me from chapter to chapter. While things for this plotline are wrapped up there are still things to explore both concerning the secret experiments Myra started as well as Owein’s future. The author’s note at the end tells us this was intended to be a trilogy but Owein’s story took on a life of its own resulting in this fourth entry and, if her hint is to be believed hopefully we will get another entry continuing Owein’s story. Highly recommended. ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

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