Carry On (Mysterious Powers #1)
by Celia Lake
My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Cozy Historical Fantasy Romance
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f
Blurb:
Enjoy this kind and gentle historical fantasy romance set in the magical community of Great Britain during the Great War.Elen has a nurse’s hands.
Sent home from the Front after a injury leaves her with ongoing headaches, Elen is desperate to do her part for the War effort. Assigned to a mysterious patient, she wants to help him recover.
The Temple of Healing should be a sanctuary. But when Elen tries to find out more about her patient, she can’t get any information. His files aren’t available, and no one will answer her questions.
Roland has no hope for change.
He has been locked away in a hospital room for months, with an ever-changing set of nurses. No one seems to care what happened to him, even his family. His only apparent use is to give rousing speeches to encourage others to go off and fight in what Roland knows is a horrific mess.
When Elen appears, he’s sure nothing will change. Slowly but surely, her determination and stubborness shines through and knits his world back together. She’s willing to take risks to find out what happened to him, and he finds himself agreeing to her suggestions for healing – even a sacred bath.
It becomes clear that all is not what it seems at the hospital. With help from a few friends, unmistakable blessings, and a little luck, they might just be able to untangle what’s going on together.
Carry On is the first book of the Mysterious Powers series, exploring the institutions of Albion during and after the Great War. All of Celia Lake’s Albion books exploring the magical community of the British Isles can be read in any order. It is full of knitting, helpful friends, stubborness, and a touch of the divine. Enjoy this charming romantic fantasy set in 1915 with a happily ever after ending!
My Review
After reading Sailor’s Jewel by Celia Lake, I decided to read Carry On next as this one would feature Rhoe the main character from Sailor’s Jewel as a side character. Carry On is about nurse Elen who has returned home from the war with bad headaches and gets a job as the Temple of Healing again. She gets assigned to Roland, who after getting injured in battle is now recovering at the Temple of Healing. Except Roland isn’t recovering, Elen can’t get access to his medical files nor speak to his Healer. Soon the two team up to figure out what’s going on at the Temple of Healing and with Roland’s care.
This book took me a while to get into and at first I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it. The constant setting at the Temple of Healing wasn’t as engaging as I would’ve liked. And the situation with Roland’s health just hit me hard and I really struggled with the fact someone would compromise his recovery. It really didn’t sit well with me. But slowly I got more into the story. I liked the characters and I liked the mystery of what exactly was going on and why. The plot slowly develops and I liked seeing Roland and Elen do what they could to figure things out. They reach out to friends and make new ones. I liked seeing Rhoe fully confident and used to her role leading the baths and I liked how she helped this couple out.
The romance took a while to really get going. At first Roland is so sick and not doing well, so there is mostly Elen taking care of him. Roland slowly improves under her care and I liked seeing more of his personality shine through. Even so the patient-nurse type romance isn’t my favorite. I did like how they handled it and didn’t really get into a relationship until after Roland recovered. As that took most of the book it did mean there aren’t many scenes of them actually dating and interacting after he has recovered. The epilogue was lovely, but I would’ve liked to see a bit more of them after Roland’s recovery and they can start dating. Despite that I did like these two together.
Both characters were interesting and I enjoyed reading about them. Elen’s dedication to being a good nurse and doing what she can to help Roland recover was awesome to see. I also liked reading about her knitting and that added some extra coziness to some scenes. Her talks with Roland during their visits outside were some of my favorite scenes to read. I had a bit more trouble really getting a feel for Roland due to him being sick, but that does improve a bit as the story progresses. I also liked getting to see how he interacts with his parents later on in the book.
This book takes place during The Great War and I usually avoid books set during wars as I just find them sad and hard to read. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I still enjoyed this book, although it helps it doesn’t take place at the front. It does deal with a lot of the impact of the country being at war. And I felt like I learned a lot about how the home front deals with war and specifically how Britain is during The Great War. There’s a lot about people returning home with new ailments and it was interesting to see this impact magic as well. And there are parts about how Elen does knitting for the war effort, which I hadn’t realized was a thing.
I liked how this book showed more about the Temple of Healing and how that all works. I’ve read multiple of Celia Lake’s books before and I think two that deal with the Temple of Healing in some closer way, but this book really goes into more depth and shows how the whole institution works. I also liked reading more about the baths and how that worked. As well as how religion works in this world, Elen is quite religious and it was interesting seeing how that impacted her life and seeing how religion in general worked in this world. This book also expands on what I know of how magic works in this world. There are some interesting charms Elen uses during her nursing work as well as how Roland’s magic is not functioning how it should after his injuries.
To summarize: It took me some time to get into this book, but I did end up enjoying it. The setting at the Healing temple, the nurse-patient romance and the war focus aren’t topics I usually enjoy reading about, but I stuck with it as I love Celia Lake’s books and the further I got into this one the more I enjoyed it. I liked both Elen and Roland and seeing them team up to figure out what’s going on at the Temple of Healing and why Roland isn’t improving. The plot was interesting and I liked seeing it play out, but some scenes did hit me hard and it upset me how someone interfered with Roland’s healing. I really liked Elen’s dedication to her nursing work and how she pays attention to what Roland needs and how she can help him. I liked seeing Rhoe and Cyrus as side characters in this one as well as Roland’s parents who have their own story. I liked learning more about how the war impacted things and how the home front dealt with things as well as how the magic plays a role in it all. I liked how this book showed me more of how The Temple of Healing worked as well as more about how religion works in this world and the magic involved in nursing. All in all I enjoyed this book and can’t wait to read more books by this author.
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