This was a charming delight of cosy hug. It has a lot in common with T. J. Klune's House on the Cerulean Sea: Orphaned magical children live in an idyllic paradise, which is under threat fro the outside, and our veiwpoint character enters the paradise, finds home and love and family, and saves them from the danger. Absolutely nothing bad happens in this book. There is a lot of description of gloriously comfortable houses and cottages and furniture and libraries and cosiness. There is good food. There is a Very Good Dog. There is never any sense of real danger. This is a book you read when you want a story, but you can't bear the thought of bad things happening to anyone. It's a bit limited, naturally, under those constraints, but for what it was, it was exactly right.

I definitely cast Ian and Ken as Ian McKellan and Patrick Stuart in my head.