feather_ghyll

Cream Buns and Crime: Robin Stevens, Puffin 2017

This book is subtitled ‘A Murder Most Unladylike Collection’, and reminded me of annuals and that types of books, but it’s in the same paperback format as the longer mysteries in the series. The conceit is ( Read more... )

Edited on 10/12/2022.

The Amazing Affair at Highlands: Elizabeth Tarrant, Evans 1951

Elizabeth Tarrant was, of course, a pseudonym for Eric Leyland, and there’s a similarity in character types and interaction in the books written under both names. And ( Read more... )

Welsh Adventure: Viola Bayley. The Children’s Book Club, 1968

[This is a Welsh review of the above book, the English translation will be posted shortly.]

( Read more... )

Mistletoe and Murder: Robin Stevens (Puffin 2016)
A Murder Most Unladylike/Wells and Wong mystery

As alluded to at the end of the previous book in the series, ‘Jolly Foul Play’, Hazel and Daisy go to Cambridge for Christmas, meeting all the members of the Junior Pinkerton society. Inevitably, they come across a mystery or two and it’s no surprise that murder is committed soon thereafter.

This was my Christmas Day book – I’d pretty much decided to read it then when I bought my copy. I read it in three sittings, and I’m still trying to decide what I made of it. ( Read more... )

My Cousin Rachel
This adaptation of Du Maurier’s book, which I haven’t read, revolves around ( Read more... )

Adventure on Rainbow Island by Dorothy Clewes
I enjoyed this well enough, considering it was narrated by a sixteen year old chauvinist ( Read more... )

I've also recently reread The Ambermere Treasure by Malcolm Saville, featuring the Jillies and Standings. I’d bought a second copy by accident, although I can see why I didn’t really remember it. ( Read more... )

Abbey Turns the Tables: Eric Leyland, Nelson 1959

I bought this thinking it would be about a mixed-gender school, but, set at a boys’ boarding school, it’s solely a boys own adventure. I see I’ve never written a review of a boys own book before, but then I haven’t read many and most of those involved Billy Bunter. When I see boys own books in shops, I tend to wish they were girls own and move on.

The most striking feature of this book is ( Read more... )

I haven’t posted for quite a while, during which time I haven’t read many feather-ghyllesque books. That is, I read Dead in the Water, one of Carola Dunn’s Daisy Dalrymple mysteries, in which she and Alec solve a murder over a weekend – a book I happily read while day-tripping.

In the meantime, the news about Maria Sharapova has come out. ( Some thoughts )

As I said in the review, reading Barbed Wire-Keep Out! made me eager to revisit its prequel Snowed-up With a Secret, also by Agnes M. Miall, which I think I could have bought twenty years ago, which may be why I didn’t remember it.

In this story, ( Read more... )

Barbed Wire—Keep Out!: Agnes M. Miall Brock Press 1950

Isn’t this one of the most brilliant titles for a children’s book ever? It demands that the reader dives in, just like the barbed wire and the injunction to keep out has no influence on the main characters of this adventure.

They are Perry (really Perilla, poor thing) and her sister Prue and their chums Hump and Noel. They have appeared in other books, one of which, Snowed Up With a Secret, I own and had read years and years ago, but don’t remember a thing about. Perry and Hump are aged about sixteen, Prue’s about fourteen and Noel about eleven. So, if you like books about gangs of children bringing down gangs of criminals, you’ll like this.

( Read more... )

For the School Colours: Angela Brazil. Blackie & Son.

I wish I could say this was a blossomy book, borrowing the top-hole slang that its characters use, but I can’t. Well, it isn’t too bad and it doesn’t feature that dreaded chapter of made-up stories that usually dog Brazil’s books. However, I did mentally say ‘Oh, Angela’ in a ‘what are we to do with you way’ quite a lot. It is set during World War One and features a great deal of propaganda that is glaringly cartoonish and yet sincere from a century’s distance. It’s also not quite the book it seems to be in the first chapter, and perhaps I would have preferred it if it was – I’ll explain.

( Read more... )

Murder Most Unladylike: Robin Stevens Corgi 2014

Before Daisy Wells and narrator Hazel Wong have had a change to get bored of their secret Detective Society at Deepdean School, ( Read more... )

Thanks to callmemadam for drawing my attention to this book!