A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

Mandanna’s literary worlds are all thematically connected, even among her standalone novels. For example, her protagonists are often alienated from the broader community of witches and even from their own birth families, and they grow to understand The Value of Found Family as their stories progress. Like Mika Moon, the protagonist of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, Sera Swan is in her early thirties and does not have a solid sense of who she is. Both characters are raised by guardians who are not their natural parents, and both have tenuous relationships with their own magic due to their difficult childhoods. Mika and Sera both lack adequate magical guidance, though for different reasons, and they both long for connection with others who understand and accept them. As the lodger Matilda tells Sera, “Families share a name, apparently, yet here we are […] I’m just saying we’re here for you […] No matter what happens with your magic. Whether you get it back or not. We’re here” (250). Surrounded by these kindly sentiments, Sera and her lodgers find a sense of belonging with the families they create rather than the ones into which they were born.

Mandanna’s novels also combine elements of different genres, including romance, fantasy, and domestic fiction, all of which are blended to create “cozy” texts with strong female protagonists. Mandanna stated in an interview, “When I started working on [The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches], we were several months into the pandemic and all I wanted was to lose myself in a warm, cozy, safe place that felt very different from reality. That’s what inspired Mika and Nowhere House” (Brewer, Robert Lee. “Sangu Mandanna: On Writing Her First Novel for Adults.” Writer’s Digest, 24 Aug. 2022). In this particular text, Mika’s love interest, Jamie, is revealed to have had a troubled childhood before Lillian Nowhere took him in, and he now works as her librarian. He cares deeply for her adopted daughters and has been helping to raise them. These plot points bear distinct similarities to A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping, given that Sera’s love interest, Luke, has also dealt with childhood trauma and has finally found a sense of belonging at the Batty Hole, the inn run by Sera and her aunt Jasmine. Much of the novel centers on daily life at the inn, the near-constant need for repairs to the place, and the relationships among its lodgers and inhabitants. With all her novels, Mandanna hopes that her readers “find a welcoming, cozy world to lose themselves in when the real world feels a little too much” (Brewer). Because the main characters are witches, fantastical elements abound in these domestic settings, and the incongruous blend contributes to the narrative’s distinctly “cozy” tone.

Furthermore, Mandanna’s work often depicts the romances of gay partners alongside those of straight ones, and she does not shy away from addressing the racism and xenophobia that characterize her witches’ worlds. She also tackles important issues such as emotional abuse, often depicting parents’ neglect of their children and the lifelong traumas that ensue from such mistreatment. In this way, she incorporates realistic contemporary issues into her work, which celebrates people of all ages and races and champions loving relationships of all kinds. While the characters experience various kinds of prejudice, they always feel a sense of belonging and empowerment within the found families that they create for themselves.