feather_ghyll

A Spoonful of Murder: Robin Stevens, Puffin (Penguin Random House) 2021
A Murder Most Unladylike mystery

The title is a bit ( Read more... )

Fall of a Philanderer: Carola Dunn, Constable and Robinson 2011 (first published in 2005)

In the latest Daisy Dalrymple mystery, Daisy, her stepdaughter Belinda, and Bel’s best friend Deva have come to the Devonshire seaside village of Westcombe, where Alec is soon to join them for a summer holiday. ( Read more... )

Under A Dancing Star: Laura Wood, Scholastic, 2019.

This is delicious. It’s both a prequel to ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ transported to the 1930s and a young adult novel about a summer romance that turns into a first love. From when we first meet our narrator, ( Read more... )

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 Skylarks’ War: Hilary McKay. Macmillan Children‘s Books, 2018

I’ll start this review by discussing preconceptions, or, less pretentiously, admit that for some reason I thought this book was set during the second world war. I didn’t really look at it when I snapped it up in a charity shop (way back when) as it had been so widely lauded. It was only upon opening it up to read it that I realised my mistake. And, of course, it was suitably published a century after the end of the first world war.

( This review refers to some details from the end of the book. )

A Song for Summer: Eva Ibbotson Quickbrew, 1998

Unless if I mis-tagged it, I don’t think I posted about ‘A Song for Summer’ here when I first read it.

( Read more... )

Mistletoe and Murder: Carola Dunn Constable and Robinson 2011

This is a Daisy Dalrymple mystery, and not to be confused with the Wells and Wong mystery with the same title which I posted about this time last year.

I kept this for reading over Christmas, as it would be seasonal, and it ended up being my Boxing Day read.

( Read more... )

The Case of the Murdered Muckraker: Carola Dunn, (A Daisy Dalrymple mystery) Robinson 2011

Unexpectedly, it took me ages to read this. ( Read more... )

I've mainly been reading:

To Davy Jones Below: Carola Dunn

( Read more... )

Under a Cornish Sky: Liz Fenwick

( Read more... )

Clover Cottage: Frances Cowan.

( Read more... )

The League of the Links: E. M. de Foubert

( Read more... )

And I got a bundle of Angela Brazil books for a reasonable price per book.

Magic Flutes: Eva Ibbotson Picador 2009

I didn’t get as emotional this time as I did when first reading this, but there was certainly a moment where Tessa is so giving that made me catch my breath.

When looking up the chronology of Ibbotson’s books to see what came after ‘A Countess Below Stairs’, I discovered it was ‘Magic Flutes’, which I think was one of the last of Ibbotson’s books for adults - although it’s to be found on teenage fiction/young adult shelves now - that I came across, and that this book has won the Romantic Novel of the Year award in the early eighties. Now, I can’t claim to have read all the books in contention, but I can see why.

( Read more... )