Phoenix Rising

Phoenix Rising  is a novel of The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences by Pip Baalantine & Tee Morris.  It is published by Harper Voyager an imprint of HarperCollins and it is 402 pages long. A brief summary is that England is under attack from a malevolent brotherhood known only as the Phoenix Society. Eliza Braun is a hot tempered agent assigned to Wellington Books to learn to cool off and to make sure he is not a double agent. Books is a gentleman in every sense of the word and is horrified to have Ms. Braun down in his archives. They get involved because Braun is trying to find out who killed her previous partner and Books because he thinks the same people are the ones who kidnapped him, now the reason that he is suspected of being a double agent. The chapter titles are just delightful for example: Chapter Thirteen Wherein Agent Braun Causes a Bit of a Ruckus while Making Friends. The humor in this is based on the gender basis that people have and the authors play that up with Ms. Braun being the violent one with dynamite on her and Mr. Books is the one who loves quiet and opera. The sub-plots are interesting, I did not feel like I was wasting my time by having them in the book. The ending is good with just enough questions for the next novel. I am looking forward to reading, hopefully before too long into the next year.