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Christmas at Nettleford: Malcolm Saville Armada 1970

This was better than I hoped for. I have another Nettleford/Owlers book but I don’t remember much about it. I think the attraction of ‘Christmas at Nettleford’ is ( Read more... )

Happy New Year! I wanted to post this before doing a 2017 round-up post.

[Lightly edited 4/8/18.]

Jolly Foul Play!: Robin Stevens, Puffin, 2016

The fourth ‘A Most Unladylike Mystery’ or ‘Wells and Wong’ mystery follows our heroines, schoolgirl detectives Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells, back to Deepdean School. ( Read more... )

First Class Murder: Robin Stevens (A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery) Corgi 2015

I say, old things, I jolly well ought to put Mrs Christie’s ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ on my ‘to reread’ pile!

This is the third adventure of the Detective Society, comprised of that paragon Daisy Wells and her erstwhile Watson Hazel Wong, and this time, they are ( Read more... )

I’ll post an overview of a few books I’ve read over the holidays eventually, but this post is a look back at 2015, following a tradition started by my first post of 2015 when I said I looked forward to the next adventures of Wells and Wong. Well, Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens (in which the 1930s schoolgirls investigate another mystery, this time in Daisy Wells’s country house home) lived up to my expectations. I enjoyed Kate Saunders’s Beswitched, originally published a few years ago, but taking the reader back to a 1930s boarding school, a fraction more, even. I loved reading Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery and Gail Carriger’s Etiquette & Espionage.

Turning to hadrbacks, I enjoyed The Little Betty Wilkinson by Evelyn Smith, even though I think she’s written better books. I did read a book each by the ‘big four’: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer’s Chudleigh Hold, Sally’s Summer Term by Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Tomboys at the Abbey by Elsie J. Oxenham, which I didn’t review, and For the School Colours by Angela Brazil.

(In the first paragraph, I build up to my favourite and do the opposite in the second.)

Perhaps the best book I read this year was ‘Rose Under Fire’ by Elizabeth Wein, which is wonderful and harrowing, and I feel incapable of writing about it. I also really loved Helena McEwen’s Invisible River.

I reread Katherine L. Oldmeadow’s The Fortunes of Jacky, which stands the test of time, and now I have no more Oldmeadows to reread. I am, obviously, looking out for more by her in all the shops that sell second-hand books! I hope to read the next case Hazel Wong writes up and the second in the Finishing School series, but I expect to read EBD's 'Fardingales' as I have a copy in the depths of my 'to read' pile.

Beswitched: Kate Saunders (Marion Lloyd Books – Scholastic) 2013 edition

This is the story of Flora Fox, who, when we first meet her, is ( Read more... )

The Little Betty Wilkinson: Evelyn Smith. Blackie

There is an explanation for the title, which seems an odd one for a school story and more suitable for a late nineteenth century/turn of the twentieth girls’ story by a Mrs A.B.C. Double-Barrel. I’ll get to it in a moment.

At the start of the book, Betty Wilkinson’s life is ( Read more... )

Terry’s Best Term: Evelyn Smith Blackie (an inscription reveals that my copy was a gift in Christmas 1959, although the content suggests that it was first published during the interwar period, and an article in Folly says it was 1926,)

She thought of Terry, and her firm little face softened. She liked Terry, liked her tremendously. People always laughed at schoolgirl friendships, but then people laughed at mothers for thinking their babies so wonderful, at old maids for coddling their dogs—at lots of things, nearly all women’s things. Julia thought over that, and decided that it wasn’t fair.
(p. 170)

( Read more... )

The Luck of the Melicotts: Monica Marsden Brock Books 1951

The title struck me, as I’d been making comparisons with Saville’s books when reviewing the pervious book in this series The Manor House Mystery. As with The Luck of the Sallowbys, the word ‘luck’ refers to ( Read more... )

Redshank’s Warning: Malcolm Saville. Armada 1963 edition

This is the book that introduces the Jillions (aka the Jillies – Mandy, Prue and Tim) to the Standings (Guy and Mark) and readers.

( Read more... )