Wyrde and Widdershins

House of Werth #5

by Charlotte E. English

The best of times and the worst of it’s Hallowe’en at the House of Werth…
Augusta Honoria Werth. Deceased October 31st, 1821.
What passes for family peace is shattered (yet again) with the arrival of Nell, and the Book of Spectres. There, written in good black ink, is the date of Gussie’s three days from now, on Hallowtide itself.
Not just Gussie, but all the Werths are slated, somehow, to die. With a maleficent Book as the bearer of bad news, the recalcitrant tomes must be involved; but who’s behind the boisterous books, and why have they got it in for Gussie?
With no time at all to stave off disaster, and more than the family honour on the line, the Werths must pull together in the face of their greatest crisis yet. Not such a tall order, surely?
Rejoin the worst and Wyrdest of families at the spookiest time of the year! The Werths versus inevitable what could possibly go wrong? WARNING, this tale will expose you rambunctious revenants, garrulous ghouls, and tumultuous (and terrifying) tomes, handle with care.

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy

232 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 23, 2025

About the author

English both by name and nationality, Charlotte hasn’t permitted emigration to the Netherlands to change her essential Britishness. She writes colourful fantasy novels over copious quantities of tea, and rarely misses an opportunity to apologise for something. Spanning the spectrum from light to dark, her works include the Draykon Series, Modern Magick, The Malykant Mysteries and the Tales of Aylfenhame.

Reviews

[M.A.SPRIGGS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent read

A fun and enjoyable story set in Regency England with a magical, mystical and sometimes monstrous family. When a foretelling of their death unfolds, the Werths set out to discover who is behind this plot. Love the dry, sarcastic humour and quirky characters. Highly recommend.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still enjoy this series, it is a delight. Gussie falling for Ballantine is a bit disappointing to me personally because I find him dreadfully boring (generic romance hero, but at least he's not of the yikes variety). This book focused on Theo in a way that made me start to really enjoy him and I am looking forward to seeing how his storyline progresses based on what's been hinted at.

[Voirrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new House of Werth Book is always a joy. This is no exception, and I read it from beginning to end, pausing only for meals, sleep, and toilet breaks - then went back and read favourite bits again straight away.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a fun series, Gussie is always a delight.

[Nad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe my enthusiasm for the series fizzled out while waiting for this book, but I was bored out of my mind. On the upside, Augusta is finally dialed down enough that I wanted to slap her only a couple of times. On the downside, this book is such a mess that I feared Ms English was writing in a fever or something. The plot retreads the storyline of the feral books and simply repeats a lot of the stuff the Werths dealt with before, even though much better ideas were right there. As in the previous books, characters disappear from and reappear in the plot at random (the Selwyns are only mentioned, so is Ivo, and Uncle Silvester is outright absent with no explanation). The story itself is plothole ridden, the more you think about it, the faster it falls apart, and the mystery is again solved not by the investigation itself but by an outside source outright telling them (that source is never mentioned again). And they still refuse to burn the damn books! Some paragraphs and dialogues continue to be outright incomprehensible, but most egregiously, everyone is somehow bland, even Theo and Ballantine (at least the former gets a couple of moments to shine and the latter is much less exhausted).

We get a couple of new characters and they are decent enough (even though Miss Baudelaire feels like a forced romance for Theo in the future?), and Goodspeed is as mysterious as ever (and we still get no answers about him). This elevates the book to two stars, but only because I gave one star to Book 2 and this one is marginally better.


~~~~~~~
Wyrde and Wayward ⭐⭐⭐⭐
‌Wyrde and Wicked ⭐
‌Wyrde and Wild ⭐⭐⭐
‌Wyrde and Wondrous ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wyrde and Widdershins ⭐⭐