At the House of the Magician ~ Mary Hooper

Lucy has been forced to run away from home as she fears for her safety from her drunken father. She is taken on as a maid at the house of Dr Dee, court magician, upon whom Elizabeth I relies heavily, even down to advising the date of her coronation.

The household is strange and sinister, and Lucy has a nose for intrigue . . . And she has more than enough to satisfy her: Lucy stumbles across a plot to assassinate the queen and has to find means to warn her . . .

I used to really, really love this book. I still do really like it. It was the first I had ever read from Hooper and I just fell in love with all of her subsequent books (which I will be reviewing soon x).

Lucy is a very curious girl who goes to work as a nursemaid in Dr Dee's house. Whilst there, her curiosity brings her to his library where she find all manners of strange and sometimes scary objects. She meets Tomas on one of her more daring trips to the library and this leads to her becoming a spy for her beloved Queen Elizabeth 1. She is a likeable character because of her gentle nature and difficult background. Her supporting characters (Isabelle, Tomas, Beth, Meryl...) and Hooper's writing really brought the Elizabethan world to life.

Dr Dee's Mirror and Scrying Stone

The thing that I loved the most about this book is how it brings in historical facts and intertwined them fiction to create a compelling story of a young girl in Elizabethan England.
      Dr Dee was Queen Elisabeth's personal magician (not the kind that we know today) as well as a mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. He lived in Mortlake in his later years and this is where Lucy's story is set. It gives a lot of mention to Dr Dee's famous 'scrying stone and mirror' and it also touches on the supernatural fears of the time and Dee's involvement with them. I found it interesting to discover more about the intriguing life of Dr Dee but after re-reading the book recently, I feel that it is more suited to a young teen audience.


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