This is the sixth in the Flavia de Luce series — but the first one I have read. No doubt there are aspects of the novel that I didn’t appreciate since I was familiar with the stock characters. In this episode, Flavia’s mother Harriet (who has been missing since she was a baby) is coming…
REVIEW: THE GODDESS AND THE THIEF by Essie Fox
Taking cues from The Moonstone, Essie Fox’s newest book weaves colonialist India and Victorian spiritualism together into a riveting story. Our heroine, Alice Willoughby, has had the childhood that many British children must have in those days. She was born abroad in India, the daughter of an East India Company man and his English-born wife. Alice’s…
ACCENT: THE RAILWAYMAN’S POCKETBOOK
This book is such a treasure. Like many people, I have a nostalgia for vintage train travel (even though I never experienced it). I even got married at an old roundhouse. There is something very elemental about iron, steam, fire and coal getting you from one place to another. The Railwayman’s Pocketbook is a compendium…
Books for Christmas
Today I’d like to highlight a few books that I’ve read recently and can recommend as Christmas gifts for the reader on your list. SHADOW WOMAN: THE EXTRAORDINARY CAREER OF PAULINE BENTON by Grant Hayter-Menzies This is a warm, vivid biography of an unusual circumstance. Born to a wealthy and enlightened family in the late…
REVIEW: THE SECRET ROOMS by Catherine Bailey
The Secret Rooms are just that — large, separated and locked. Bailey, a writer researching something else entirely, stumbles upon a tightly-held secret at Belvoir Castle. The estate, which has been in the family for over five-centuries, was the setting for numerous pivotal events in British history. It also had its fair share of dastardly…