A lovely, hilarious ending to an absolutely brilliant series from the immensely talented India Holton. (That may be a lot of adjectives for one sentence, but this book, series, and author deserve them all.)

In The Secret Service of Tea and Treason we learn that this whimsical Victorian world of pirates and witches is also shared by spies. The organization A.U.N.T. raises children without families to become secret agents/domestic staff, and the two most gifted among their ranks are Alice Dearlove and Daniel Bixby -- both of whom we had the pleasure of meeting as secondary characters in The League of Gentlewomen Witches. On a mission to save the Queen from assassination via some terrifying weapon hidden at the estate of a Wisteria Society member, Alice and Daniel are forced to pretend to be a married couple and attend a house party. Shenanigans obviously ensue. As does sexy stuff.

I enjoyed this read immensely. As is expected from an India Holton book, this had its share of laugh-out-loud moments and stunning wit. But it also (again, like all India Holton books) has a ton going on underneath its surface of hilarity and fun, including wonderful neurodivergent rep via both Alice and Daniel. We also got to see all of the previous books' main characters return, and they all get such a beautiful happily ever after that ties the perfect satin bow around the whole thing and left me feeling warm and content.

I'm sad that the Dangerous Damsels series has come to an end, but at the same time I am absolutely giddy to learn more about what India Holton will be gifting us next.

This is such a lovely series! I highly enjoyed the third installment in it. It has wit and romance and is just oh-so good! I'm eagerly anticipating the next book in the series!!

India Holton, where have you been all my life?! Thank you for another frothy madcap adventure filled with wit, scandal, magic and romance. This book returns to the world of the Wisteria Society, focusing on two spies assigned to a mission at a pirate house party. Holton creates two lovely characters who have been deprived of friendship and kindness since childhood as part of their "spy training". Well, let's just say sparks fly in oh so many ways, rogue pirates, advanced weaponry . . . plus sexual tension and the possibility of human companionship, gasp! Need a dose of intelligent escapism and delight? Look no further.

This is by far one of the most charming and delightful romance series I have ever read. I was worried that the humor in her writing would become monotonous after three books and prevent the main characters from being distinct enough to differentiate between but they absolutely are distinguishable from one another. The sense of humor and writing style is the same across the three books but it didn’t feel repetitive or stale at all.

The romance feels much softer and traditionally “romantic” than the first two. I also think it was a bit more sexually explicit than the others but that’s not a bad thing at all.

I wanted to enjoy this but found both the spice/romance scenes and the dialogue between the two characters odd and not easy to follow. It honestly made me cringe.

India Holton has DONE IT AGAIN. I would read her grocery list, so it came as no surprise that I flew through this book and adored every second of it. The humor and literary references are on point as always, it’s deceptively emotional (my heart hurtssss for little Alice and Bixby), and the romance absolutely ended me in the best way. The spy angle was so much fun, and was a really fun twist on a fake relationship plot while still hitting all the notes you want from a false marriage. Also, the cameos!! I screeched every time Ned, Cecilia, Alex, or Charlotte showed up.

It was just too delicious. I can’t wait for whatever India Holton writes next.

I found this book to be the best of the series so far. You can really feel the author’s growth through the series, and I commend her on her ability to develop her characters in such a way that the reader personally feels so close to them. This book was funny, charming, relatable, and swoon-worthy, and especially well-paced for a light and endearing read.

⚠️ THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK ! ⚠️

THE SECRET SOCIETY OF TEA AND TREASON is the follow-up to the LEAGUE OF GENTLEWOMEN WITCHES, and the third in India Holton’s Dangerous Damsels series overall. I was not left impressed by LEAGUE, but I had loved THE WISTERIA SOCIETY OF LADY SCOUNDRELS, and I'm glad to say that this installment bumped the bar right back up.

tl;dr for the publisher’s summary, but Alice and Daniel are the two top secret agents tasked with pretending to be a married couple to infiltrate a weekend celebration full of pirates in an effort to recover a weapon that could be used to assassinate the Queen. We're first introduced to them in LEAGUE, when Daniel encounters Alice on the street and is promptly robbed and beaten by her before she makes a quick escape. I hadn't picked up on the hint that they would be our next focal characters, but I'm glad they were. They’re certainly our first law-abiding characters (boring), but something I particularly enjoyed about SOCIETY was Alice’s clear yearning for something more than the agency wants her to be — her unexpected emotional reactions to the pirates taking her under their wing and complimenting her and the friendships she eventually cultivates were all very sweet. Likewise, I enjoyed the lack of drama when A and D transitioned from fake marriage into real feelings; they didn’t question their own emotions or each other’s, only their agency’s willingness to let them be together (hint: this is the third-act miscommunication stand-in).

While Alice shares the same naivety as Holton’s previous female protagonists when it comes to romance (and I am begging Holton to diverge from this trend with her next novel, it is getting stale), Daniel was removed enough from the pirate archetypes of the previous male love interests to feel fresh. Their banter was fun, and Alice's internal narration revolving around spy training and the various ways she could incapacitate someone was always good for a laugh.

Holton also throws in the usual ‘man becomes smitten after woman displays the ability to kill him on the spot’ trope that this series runs on, and I’m still not mad about it. Did I get even more enjoyment from it because I just finished watching the Tin Can Bros ‘Spies Are Forever’ on YouTube and thus was primed to dive in to the subject matter? Unclear.

It seems like SOCIETY might be the last in this series for a while, as the book had a preview for a new series from Holton in the back. If that’s the case, I think it’s a strong ending, and I appreciate the whimsical nature of this series as a whole. Like I said in the WISTERIA review: this isn’t a perfect book, but it’s such a fun read that its imperfections don’t matter.

4.5 out of 5 Stars

I really wanted to love this book, I love books with sassy women, the cover is beautiful, and I love tea. Unfortunately I found I didn't enjoy reading it. I found the two main characters to be annoying with their smugness and I thought the plot was boring. I did appreciate the writing, it is witty and fun, but I just didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

Another excellent installment in this very fun world. You probably could read this as a stand alone, though I imagine some things might be dreadfully confusing if you haven't read at least one of the previous novels. I love the premise of a super secret society of servants that is a spy ring in this nutty world of pirates flying houses in the sky instead of sailing ships and witches engaged in intrigue. However, this spy society takes orphans and gives them a very brutal training to turn them into assassins. So our hero and heroine have some serious trauma and they occasionally mention it to each other. And yet the book still manages to be entertaining and fun, even with the childhood abuse. So talent on the part of the author, but fair warning if you need to protect your mental health.

Netgalley ARC Review

Funny, witty, chaotic. I love this series all though sometimes I find it too chaotic and can’t keep track of what is happening. Sometimes having to reread scenes to understand what is going on because too much is happening all at once.

The third book in the Dangerous Damsels series follows two rival spies who have to work together to find a mysterious weapon and stop an assassination attempt to kill the Queen.

Fake marriage, Pirates, House Parties, Witty Banter, Shenanigans, a hero who wears spectacles and has a tattoo and a heroine who can kill a man but who’s too innocent and naive for her own good and who has social anxiety and sensory issues.

Plotline/Typo: Cecelia was often referred to as Miss Bassingthwaite instead of Mrs. she is married to Ned so should be Mrs Lightborn or Mrs Bassingthwaite