strange and random happenstance

Way back in January of 2013 my Mom and I become obsessed with the reboot of Father Brown. It had just the perfect light touch. What's more it had Mark Williams. Which is actually how I heard about the show. Most people think of him as Arthur Weasley, a role to which even Father Brown did the occasional nod. I am not most people. To me he is Olaf Petersen, "I've been to Titan, I've been to Juno, I can name eight things that go in jars that you know!" Olaf, you didn't deserve to die aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf, but you will forever be missed. When my Mom's health started to fade a lot of shows we watched fell by the wayside. Which means that somewhere around season three or four we had stopped watching Father Brown. The one upside to this clear demarcation point in my life is that going back now and catching up on shows I used to love I have so many more episodes to watch. Because as my life was derailed Father Brown was chugging along. Last year when I went back there were eleven seasons to catch up on! It goes to eleven! I mean, technically it now goes to twelve, but at the time I picked the show back up there were eleven seasons and a hundred and twenty episodes. All those adventures with Father Brown, Mrs. McCarthy, Lady Felicia, Sid, Inspector Sullivan, Sergeant Goodfellow, and of course, Hercule Flambeau! And then the new characters, Inspector Mallory, Bunty, Brenda, and Mrs. Isabel Devine whom I hadn't even met yet! This is a show that's simply done and that's why it's so comforting. It's a place where time stands still. Literally. It was until the season nine final and their hundredth episode, "The Red Death," that it actually became a new year. Despite having previous holiday episodes and several big events having to have occurred simultaneously, like Sid serving time before actually committing a crime, time was immaterial until the arrival of Claudie Blakley as Mrs. Devine who somehow brought time with her. As each season since has been approximately a year. I know! It's shocking how time is now flying in Kembleford! If they're not careful they might actually catch up to Sister Boniface in the sixties! While each season of this show has been a delight and, for Mrs. McCarthy, a way to dabble in her own homegrown variety of McCarthyism, this current season was especially delightful. What set it apart you say? I like how the mysteries were more tailored to the leads. In previous seasons it's murder comes what may, be it a travelling circus or a cult. Now we have the crimes reflecting the interests of our leads. Mrs. Devine loves acting and we got a historical reinactment, a murder mystery play, and a radio drama. For Ruby we had a ballroom dancing episode. And for Flambeau, we had him appear to go straight. I mean, we knew it had to happen eventually... But even with a divinely Gothic episode, "The Horns of Cernunnos," and us FINALLY meeting Violet Goodfellow and the return of Blind 'arry, Lady Felicia took the cake. In her episode, a now undoubted classic, "The Sisters of Aeschylus," Dan Douche Scott, AKA John Hopkins from Midsomer Murders is murdered and Lady Felicia asks for a little help on her novel. Which is some of the best and most comedic acting that I have ever seen from Nancy Carroll. Lady Felicia doesn't understand similes! Oh, how I never want this show to end. These are my friends. I get them. I get their humor. BATS!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: And the Emmy Goes To, Arthur Weasley, Father Brown, Hercule Flambeau, John Light, Kembleford, Lady Felicia, Mark Williams, Midsomer Murders, Mrs. Isabel Devine, Nancy Carroll, Olaf Petersen, Red Dwarf, Simile, Sister Boniface

The Serpent Dance by Sofia Slater
Published by: Swift Press
Publication Date: June 6th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 214 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Audrey and Noah are coming up on their one year anniversary. The only problem is that it happens to coincide with a big launch at Noah's art gallery. So instead of waiting they decide to celebrate on their ten month anniversary. In retrospect, this could have been inviting bad luck. Audrey is convinced that Noah has taken her copious hints and that they are going to Paris. Instead of working on the illustrations to the followup of her children's compendium of extinct animals which The Times called "equal parts urgency and enchantment" she has spent the last few weeks creating itineraries for Paris while obsessively checking that her passport is still valid and ignoring her looming deadline. The day of their getaway arrives and they head west to Paddignton, not north to St. Pancras. They are going to Cornwall. And maybe things would have worked out had she not thought they were going to Paris, but it's like Noah doesn't even know her and has some notion of recapturing the memories of a favorite childhood vacation of his instead of celebrating their relationship. Audrey spends the train journey to Trevennick for the midsummer festival mentally cataloging how her life has gone wrong. She wanted to be an artist, but was pushed by her parents to take the more sensible route and study graphic design. Her relationship with Noah was meant to open the door for her into the art world, instead he's constantly closing it. And now he's taking her to the country. She hates the country. She hates the dark. Does she secretly hate Noah? When they arrive they are taken up to the big house through the village with disturbing statues made of withies in the shape of amorphous animals being assembled on the green. Luckily their hostess is able to fill them in on these obby osses because she is none other than Stella Penrose, a tellie historian, who will be staying in her home with them. A home that is completely made of glass. They can literally see everything. This isn't the romantic weekend Audrey planned as she spends dinner getting drunk while Stella shamelessly flirts with Noah. Audrey goes to bed early and is wakened by Noah. He thinks something bad has happened. And he's right. Stella is dead. In a locked room in a completely glass house. But suicide doesn't sit right with the police or Audrey. And when Noah is arrested, perhaps this is the sign she needed that they are officially over. But the killer isn't. The town is backwards in more ways than one and the river will have its due.

The Wicker Man is one of the movies that will forever be a classic. It's camp, it's creepy, and it taps into our communal love of folk horror that we as viewers, and readers, can't get enough of. I love me some folk horror. But not Midsommar. Never that. Having discovered Sofia Slater when I read Auld Acquaintance I couldn't wait for this book being touted as folk horror with wicker man vibes to be released stateside and ordered it from England. It would be the book to usher in summer 2025. And, while yes, the obby osses bring a nice Summerisle vibe to Trevennick, that isn't what makes the book work. In fact I wouldn't even label it as folk horror, it's just a good old fashioned murder mystery with the trappings you might see on an episode of Midsomer Murders. In fact I'm thinking of the one where Nicholas Rowe is killed by an arrow while attempting a rite that would allow him to sleep with his sister/wife. But enough about my love for Nicholas Rowe, what makes this book work is that Sofia Slater is a writer that just makes her people and locations come alive. They are fully three-dimensional. I can picture myself going to Trevennick and walking into the Sacacren's Head and being served by the Kingcups. I am there. I am a part of this ill-fated getaway. But most importantly, it's the journey of Audrey that draws you in. She's on a legit heroine's journey. She is confronting the dark abuses of her past in a similar milieu which she has been forced into. This is full immersion therapy and I am here for it. She's figuring out who she is and what she wants and confronting how her expectations don't meet reality and it's a struggle so many of us have to face, thankfully without usually having to endure a trial by literal fire. When she tells Morwenna Kingcup things she hasn't even told Noah, you know this place is literally healing her. It also allows her to open up artistically. What starts at first as a way to make sense of the crime as well as appease her editor, she draws the crime scene and her surroundings in detail. Just remove a dead body here and add a cute bunny there, and her sequel about vanishing Britain is almost done! But the fact that what she uses for therapy helps to reveal the truth is delicious. Her artist's eye catches something that the normal person wouldn't notice and this thrills me as an artist. I am always looking at things differently, and when I go on walks with my Dad I'm pointing out all the ways to look at the world and this artistic sensibility is what saves the day. To me, as an artist, I can't explain my glee. But also, the fact that she releases her inhibitions and Noah finally see's in her art something worth exhibiting proves that our demons, our outlets, our deliverance, brings us to our true selves and only then can we achieve our goals.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Artist, Auld Acquaintance, Cornwall, Graphic Designer, Locked Room, Midsomer Murders, Midsommar, Murder, Murder Most Foul, Nicholas Rowe, Paris, Sofia Slater, The Serpent Dance, The Wicker Man, Vacation

The Christmas Jigsaw Murders by Alexandra Benedict
Published by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: October 8th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 288 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Edie hates Christmas. With good reason. Christmas is when everyone she loves leaves her. On Christmas Day 1946 her mother died giving birth to her brother Anthony. On Christmas Eve 1988 Anthony died in a car crash after Edie and her partner Sky had a knock-down, drag-out fight, and he took to the icy roads to come get her. Two years later on Christmas Eve 1990 Anthony's son Duncan, daughter-in-law Melissa, and the older of their two children, William, died in another car crash, leaving Edie with nine-month-old great-nephew Sean to raise. She has so many dead bodies in her past, not all of them buried, that it's led her to build boundaries around her that puzzles others but has kept her safe. Cats, puzzles, and tea, they are Edie's triumvirate of solace as she casts her gimlet gaze on her neighbors putting up their holiday decorations. At least the curtains can shut out the world, like she shut Sky's memory up in the dining room. She hasn't opened that door in over twenty years. Not since Sky left. But the world seems determined to draw her out this holiday season when she finds a hand-delivered present on her doorstep on the first of December. Inside are six jigsaw pieces that form a part of a crime scene with an ominous message: 'Four, maybe more, people will be dead by midnight on Christmas Eve, unless you can put all the pieces together and stop me.' Signed Rest In Pieces. Edie is a puzzle setter, in fact she's developed quite a reputation, being dubbed the Pensioner Puzzler, and jigsaws are fascinating to her because it requires a mind that can hold the whole picture as well as the pieces. So a fan or anyone who read about her could have sent this, but it feels portentous. Which makes her call Sean, who's grown up to be a copper. She loves Sean, really she does, he's her person, she has room for no one else, not his husband Liam, or the rigmarole of their adoption saga. Sean doesn't think much of the puzzle and humors Edie's desire to be a recliner detective right up until a dead body is found with a jigsaw piece in their hand. And Sean shuts Edie out. But Rest in Pieces is still targeting Edie. And the subsequent pieces show that Sean might be in danger. They are both trying to protect the other and this puts them both in serious danger. It's time for Edie to exorcise her past and catch a killer or her person will be next.

Imagine, if you will, Ednia Monsoon, from the cult classic Absolutely Fabulous, with her Vivienne Westwood and Lacroix, aging and spending her golden years setting puzzles and being angry at the world and you've got The Christmas Jigsaw Murders. I kid you not. I mean, there's no way Edie is anyone other than Eddie! "It's Lacroix sweetie!" And that is just one of the reasons I love this book. Alexandra Benedict has had this interesting juxtaposition with her holiday oeuvre. People think they're going to be cozy, the covers give off that vibe, and then they're basically a trauma dump. And it's not like The Christmas Jigsaw Murders is without it's trauma. I mean, just look to Edie's backstory that's nothing but bodies. But here it's handled more deftly. There's almost a comedic slant. There's a high body count, but, like Midsomer Murders, it's done more tongue-in-cheek. When Edie's backstory is told it's almost humorous, the "but wait there's more" of it all. And the trauma is more removed, family members are just being killed off by automobiles in droves where previously it was all rape and pregnancy PTSD. The later you can't make light of but the former? Oh yes! And Alexandra Benedict goes there. In fact, when I saw that this book was getting a sequel, The Christmas Cracker Killer, out this November, I was really excited. Because the balance of dark to light is perfect in this book, she has nailed the perfect Christmas mystery here. Her crown as the 'Queen of the Christmas Mystery' has, in my mind, finally been earned. I enjoyed her first two tales, I loved this one and can't wait for the next. But there was also a depth here. It's not just all flash clothes, there's Edie learning to not wallow in her trauma. She starts to open up, and the doors to the dining room are just the first step. The thing is, if you aren't replacing bad memories with good memories then all you will have are the bad ones on a loop. Christmas will always be THAT Christmas of loss, that one in 1946 or 1988 or 1990 unless you rewrite it. Don't deny Sean Christmas, lean into it, make it special for him and it will be the happy memories you remember more than the sad ones. The sadness and the trauma never leaves, but they can coexist with happiness. Yes, it might occasionally veer into being wistful, but that's better than wallowing any day. As Ebenezer Scrooge showed us in a book Edie doesn't much like, put a little love in your heart!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Absolutely Fabulous, Alexandra Benedict, Edie O'Sullivan, Edina Monsoon, Lacroix, Midsomer Murders, Murder Most Foul, Pensioner Puzzler, Puzzles, Rest in Pieces, The Christmas Jigsaw Murders, Vivienne Westwood

If you are a fan of British murder mysteries, you are a fan of Anthony Horowitz. If he did nothing else in his life he would be remembered for bringing Midsomer Murders to the small screen. A show that has been a staple of television since he wrote the adaptation of that first episode, "The Killings at Badger's Drift," over twenty-five years ago. But then he created one of the greatest detectives ever with Christopher Foyle, the star of Foyle's War. So many stars got their start on these intricately plotted mysteries that were almost a British equivalent to Columbo, in that the joy wasn't just solving the crime but in watching how Foyle approached solving the crime. Yet Horowitz didn't limit himself to television, he was a successful author. He predominately wrote children's and YA until 2011 when he wrote the first officially licensed Sherlock Holmes book since the death of Conan Doyle, The House of Silk. Soon after the Ian Fleming estate asked him to take over the Bond franchise. Yet inbetween these behemoth undertakings he started two series of his own, one staring himself and one staring editor Susan Ryeland. The first book in Susan's series, Magpie Murders, came out in 2016, which means I finally got around to reading it when they announced the miniseries in 2021. I might have had a few issues with the story but what really intrigued me was how Anthony Horowitz himself was going to adapt it for the small screen. This is only the second time he has adapted one of his books, and I don't think anyone saw Stormbreaker did they? Therefore I had to wonder, would he solve some of my issues with the story or perhaps make them worse? And as for some of the big reveals, they wouldn't work in a visual medium. The twist that everyone in the Pünd story has a real life counterpart is handled with clever dual casting. This is fun and lets you not have to laboriously connect the dots yourself. Of course by using this technique Horowitz is diminishing the importance of the story within the story. It isn't until the fifth of the six episodes that we get to spend any real time getting a handle on the crime Pünd is investigating. Therefore we are spending too much time with Susan and not enough with Atticus. Yes, by having Susan interacting with Atticus we get that much needed hit of the genius Tim McMullan, but I almost wish I could have watched Magpie Murders without the present day. Because my main problem with the book was Susan Reyland. Let's just say the casting of Lesley Manville sure was surprising. By aging her up her career made more sense. Sadly this change as well as an added delicious twist of the knife from author Alan Conway couldn't save the character for the majority of the miniseries. Somehow in the final episode Lesley's prodigious acting talents raised above the material and gave the overall show a very satisfying ending. But I really think it could have been more. Look to episode five and six, look to the ingenious flashback complaining about flashbacks, look to the vitriol spewing out of Conleth Hill as Alan Conway, and this could have been magnificent. Instead it's serviceable with touching moments and really shitty CGI magpies. I mean half my issues could have been solved with better birds. The light source is wrong on them for crying out loud! At least the opening credits were trying Emmy worthy.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Conway, And the Emmy Goes To, Anthony Horowitz, Atticus Pund, CGI, Columbo, Conleth Hill, Foyle's War, Lesley Manville, Magpie Murders, Midsomer Murders, Susan Ryeland, The House of Silk, Tim McMullan

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Published by: Penguin
Publication Date: September 3rd, 2020
Format: Kindle, 382 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Coopers Chase might seem like your regular upscale retirement community, but there's a group that meets every Thursday in the Jigsaw Room to discuss murder. Cold cases to be specific. One of the founding members, Penny, was a cop. Any case where they never caught the culprit or she wasn't sure whodunit, she bent the rules and made copies of the files and brought them with her into retirement. Her dear friend Elizabeth though is the de facto leader. Not just because Penny's dementia has taken over and she was transported to the hospital on site, but because Elizabeth has "connections" and was involved in the security services. The other two members are Ron, AKA Red Ron the union organizer, and Ibrahim, a therapist, who may or may not still be seeing patients. Now that Penny has left the group they are down a member and a certain kind of expertise, which leads Elizabeth one day to approach Joyce. Joyce used to be a nurse so can answer questions about wounds inflicted on a body and therefore becomes indispensable to The Thursday Murder Club. Whereas Joyce is just excited to be included. It's all so thrilling getting to be a part of the cool gang. She doesn't dwell on how alone she is and how her daughter never comes to visit. But the club never thought in a million years that they'd get to be on the scene and investigate a real live case! Tony Curran is the property developer behind Coopers Chase. He and his business partner Ian Ventham are planning on expanding the retirement community. Coopers Chase used to be a convent and the expansion would require the razing of the cemetery where the nuns are buried. Needless to say this plan isn't met by the community with open arms. In fact Tony Curran is murdered. Which means it's time for The Thursday Murder Club to swing into action and inveigle themselves with the police. A job that is perfect for Joyce. She's so nice and unobtrusive and always there with a tasty treat and something to drink. Elizabeth sees that Joyce really was the perfect addition to the club at this exact moment. Especially when more bodies start turning up. Will the group be able to solve the crimes being committed at Coopers Chase or will the police beat them to the finish line?

When The Thursday Murder Club was released and jumped immediately onto ever bookstore's "best of" lists I was instantly gun-shy. Me and popular books don't go hand in hand. At all. But then I was watching an episode of The Graham Norton Show and Richard Osman was on. I never connected the British comedian whose appearances on Graham Norton's show whom I've always enjoyed with the author of The Thursday Murder Club. I seriously don't know how that piece of information, which is clearly printed on the front of the book, didn't sink in. I claim distraction by fox as the only logical explanation. Therefore I got myself on the wait list at my library for a digital copy and it eventually came in and I slogged my way through to the bleak and bitter end. Here's the thing, I should have stuck with my gut and not been lured in by Graham Norton. Yes, this book has witty dialogue, so "shocking" because it's written by a comedian. But what people love about it is that it evokes Agatha Christie and Midsomer Murders. I wonder why that is? Could it be because the title (and concept) is literally two days off from an Agatha Christie book!?! The Tuesday Club Murders is a set of thirteen short stories, six of which are told at the Tuesday Night Club. This club is a group of people meeting at Miss Marple's house to discuss mysteries. Does that sound familiar Mr. Osman? Secondly the Midsomer Murders angle. Am I the ONLY person to remember the episode "Blue Herrings?" DCI Tom Barnaby's aunt goes into a nursing home where death and missing property soon follow. Now this wouldn't be the first time an author builds on greater authors to acclaim. As I've lamented several times The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo just filched the ending from two different Val McDemid books and smashed them together and everyone loved it. No, what really got me was that for a book that started out so jovial it ended up so bleak. I mean, how many suicides and assisted suicides can one book have? A lot would be Richard Osman's answer. It's not just a sloppy way to end a book but a damn depressing one given everything that came before. Though the pièce de résistance for me is just how unrealistic this retirement facility is. After how much money went into the care of my mother in a nursing facility I know what things cost, and it's dear. The whole of Coopers Chase pissed me off with it's wealth and luxury. This isn't what health care is! Who are these people? How can they afford this life? This isn't cozy, this is infuriating! I want to speak to the manager! Oh he's dead? A likely excuse.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Cold Cases, Graham Norton, Midsomer Murders, Murder Most Foul, Retirement Community, Richard Osman, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Thursday Murder Club, The Tuesday Club Murders

Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer
Published by: Arrow
Publication Date: 1941
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Joseph Herriard wants a real English Christmas. With family, friends, and figgy pudding. After years abroad treading the boards he's returned home to Lexham Manor and his older brother Nat. While Joseph embodies the spirit of Christmas his brother embodies that of Ebenezer Scrooge. Needless to say, Nathaniel is not thrilled with having people descend on his home for the holidays. The holidays are just an excuse to force people whose only connection is blood to get together and argue. But Joseph has high hopes, even if his guest list might be a bit problematic being heavy on the relatives. First there's Joseph's wife, Maud, then there's their deceased brother's children, Stephen Herriard and his gold-digging fiance Valerie Dean, Paula Herriard, who brings a young playwright, Willoughby Roydon, in tow hoping her uncle will fund his new play which she will star in, Mathilda Clare, a distant cousin, and Edgar Mottisfont, Nat's old business partner. All these people don't get along at the best of times and they all want something from Nat. In particular, they all want what he's worked hard for; money. But why should he fund the bad play of a nobody? Why should he give his nephew funds against his expectations? Mathilda is the only one who can see what's coming, "[t]here'll be murder before we're through." Nat misses dinner. This isn't like Nat at all. His bedroom door is locked. Stephen and Joseph break it down to find that Nat is dead, stabbed in the back, though the murder weapon is missing. And all six guests, not to mention the inhabitants and servants of Lexham Manor, all have a motive. Inspector Hemingway of Scotland Yard isn't pleased to be called in on Christmas Day during a snowstorm. But murder is murder no matter when it happens and he has one to solve. A locked room whodunit with way too many suspects.

I don't completely know why it is that murder fits the bill around the holidays. I bookmarked an article to read the other day talking about this phenomena and then I promptly forgot to go back and read it. Probably because I know why they are comforting to me. It's not just the vicarious thrill of watching relatives be murdered, though perhaps this is a nice release of the pressure valve that has stopped you from committing familicide. They just make it feel like everything is right in the world. It's a small little world we can inhabit for a short while where everything makes sense and everything is under control. Sure there's death, but it's a death that makes sense. They were murdered for a certain reason, it's not the capricious nature of fate but someone with a score to settle. Murder mysteries literally are like comfort food to me and during the holidays is when we all turn to comfort food and cookies. Like how Midsomer Murders is cozy while still having the highest body count of any murder mystery out there. Seriously, I think in one episode we didn't just hit double digits, but somewhere around twenty people died if you took into account a historical tunnel collapse. Here's the thing, give me a country house, a murder, and something that forces everyone to stay put and I'm a happy camper. Therefore Envious Casca fit the bill perfectly. And it had the added bonus of being a locked room mystery taking place during a snowstorm. It ticked all the boxes. Sure, the cast of characters aren't the nicest lot. In fact any one of them could have been killed and I would have been fine with it. But I just loved the puzzle of it all. Who was where when. All the different rooms, all the preposterous alibis, this was a very cleverly engineered piece of malice and murder. And unlike the previous book involving Inspector Hemingway that I read the atmosphere and the environment added so much that I couldn't help but enjoy it. Savor it this holiday season!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Christmas, English, Envious Casca, Familicide, Georgette Heyer, Lexham Manor, Locked Room, Midsomer Murders, Murder, Murder Most Foul, Mystery, Nathaniel Herriard, No Wind of Blame, Scotland Yard, Scrooge

The Midnight Hour by Elly Griffiths
Published by: Mariner Books
Publication Date: December 7th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The Brighton police force is on the hunt for another killer, but this time they have some competition - a newly formed all-women’s private eye firm, led by none other than the police chief’s wife.

Newly minted PI Emma Holmes and her partner Sam Collins are just settling into their business when they’re chosen for a high-profile case: retired music-hall star Verity Malone hires them to find out who poisoned her husband, a theater impresario. Verity herself has been accused of the crime. The only hitch - the Brighton police are already on the case, putting Emma in direct competition with her husband, police superintendent Edgar Stephens.

Soon Emma realizes that Verity’s life intersects closely with her own - most notably in their mutual connection, Max Mephisto, who has returned to England from America with his children and famous wife, Hollywood star Lydia Lamont. Lydia, desperately bored in the countryside, catches wind of what Emma and Sam are up to and offers her services. What secret does Lydia know about Verity’s past?

The team of female PIs circle closer to the killer, with the Brighton police hot on their tail. The clues suggest they’re looking for a criminal targeting the old music-hall crew. How long will it be before that trail leads straight back to Max?"

I started this series this year and it has quickly become an all-time favorite. So how felicitous there's a new entry in the series!

Bryant and May: London Bridge is Falling Down by Christopher Fowler
Published by: Bantam
Publication Date: December 7th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The brilliant duo of Arthur Bryant and John May uncovers a nefarious plot behind the seemingly innocuous death of an old lady - and when the case leads them to London Bridge, it all comes down on the Peculiar Crimes Unit.

When ninety-one-year-old Amelia Hoffman dies in her top-floor flat on a busy London road, it’s considered an example of what has gone wrong with modern society: she slipped through the cracks in a failing system.

But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their doubts. Mrs. Hoffman was once a government security expert, though no one can quite remember her. When a link emerges between the old lady and a diplomat trying to flee the country, it seems that an impossible murder has been committed.

Mrs. Hoffman wasn’t the only one at risk. Bryant is convinced that other forgotten women with hidden talents are also in danger. And, curiously, they all own models of London Bridge.

With the help of some of their more certifiable informants, the detectives follow the strangest of clues in an investigation that will lead them through forgotten alleyways to the city’s oldest bridge in search of a desperate killer.

But just when the case appears to be solved, they discover that Mrs. Hoffman was smarter than anyone imagined. There’s a bigger game afoot that could have terrible consequences."

Pardon if I've made this joke before but it's too good to pass up.... It's a wonderful day when there's a new Bryant and May!

Observations by Gaslight by Lyndsay Faye
Published by: Mysterious Press
Publication Date: December 7th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 295 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A new collection of Sherlockian tales that shows the Great Detective and his partner, Watson, as their acquaintances saw them.

Lyndsay Faye - international bestseller, translated into fifteen languages, and a two-time Edgar Award nominee - first appeared on the literary scene with Dust and Shadow, her now-classic novel pitting Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper, and later produced The Whole Art of Detection, her widely acclaimed collection of traditional Watsonian tales. Now Faye is back with Observations by Gaslight, a thrilling volume of both new and previously published short stories and novellas narrated by those who knew the Great Detective.

Beloved adventuress Irene Adler teams up with her former adversary in a near-deadly inquiry into a room full of eerily stopped grandfather clocks. Learn of the case that cemented the lasting friendship between Holmes and Inspector Lestrade, and of the tragic crime which haunted the Yarder into joining the police force. And witness Stanley Hopkins’ first meeting with the remote logician he idolizes, who will one day become his devoted mentor.

From familiar faces like landlady Mrs. Hudson to minor characters like Lomax the sub-librarian, Observations by Gaslight - entirely epistolary, told through diaries, telegrams, and even grocery lists - paints a masterful portrait of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as you have never seen them before."

I've been on a bit of a Sherlock Holmes adjacent kick this year, there Observations by Gaslight by the author of Jane Steele is just what I've been looking for!

The Hanged Man's Tale by Gerald Jay
Published by: Nan A. Talese
Publication Date: December 7th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In the shadowy back alleys and opulent homes of Paris, hard-nosed police inspector Paul Mazarelle of The Paris Directive sets out on the trail of a serial killer.

A murdered man is discovered dangling inside the tunnels of a Paris canal - the only clue, the tarot card in his pockets: the Hanged Man. When an innocent suspect is railroaded into prison for the homicide, Mazarelle sets off on the hunt for the real killer.

For the charming, hot-tempered, impulsive Frenchman - now back from the provinces and leading his own homicide unit out of Paris’s famed Quai des Orfevres - it’s an investigation that takes him far from the comforts of Beaujolais and bouillabaisse, and plunges him into an underworld of ruthless white supremacists looking for scapegoats in Paris’s growing immigrant community, corrupt cops eager to cover up a shady side business, and a conspiracy of secrets that threaten his own life.

Meanwhile, Claire Girard, an irresistible and ambitious journalist at a popular tabloid, is wrapped up in the same story. On the trail of the Tarot Card killer, Mazarelle finds himself blindsided by their growing attraction. And when his team’s case collides with Girard's latest scoop, and the body count keeps rising, Mazarelle himself becomes a prime suspect who must clear his own name. Gerald Jay’s latest Mazarelle adventure is a riveting, fast-paced thriller about a classic French detective making his way through the dangerous streets of a very modern world."

I might be a bit serial killer and tarot obsessed, therefore this book is SO in my wheelhouse.

The Witching Tree by Alice Blanchard
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: December 7th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Welcome to Burning Lake, a small, isolated town with a dark history of witches and false accusations. Now, a modern-day witch has been murdered, and Detective Natalie Lockhart is reluctantly drawn deep into the case, in this atmospheric mystery from Alice Blanchard, The Witching Tree.

As legend has it, if you carve your deepest desire into the bark of a Witch Tree, then over time as the tree grows, it will swallow the carvings until only a witch can read them.

Until now.

Detective Natalie Lockhart gained unwanted notoriety when she and her family became front and center of not one, but two sensational murder cases. Now she’s lost her way. Burned out and always looking over her shoulder, Natalie desperately thinks that quitting the police force is her only option left.

All that changes when a beloved resident - a practicing Wiccan and founder of the town’s oldest coven - is killed in a fashion more twisted and shocking than Natalie has ever seen before, leaving the town reeling. Natalie has no choice but to help solve the case along with Detective Luke Pittman, her boss and the old childhood friend she cannot admit she loves, even to herself. There is a silent, malignant presence in Burning Lake that will not rest. And what happens next will shock the whole town, and Natalie, to the core."

Witch persecution and murder is always a must read for me.

The Excalibur Curse by Kiersten White
Published by: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: December 7th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The gripping conclusion to the acclaimed Arthurian fantasy trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White finds Guinevere questioning everything - friends and enemies, good and evil, and, most of all, herself.

While journeying north toward the Dark Queen, Guinevere falls into the hands of her enemies. Behind her are Lancelot, trapped on the other side of the magical barrier they created to protect Camelot, and Arthur, who has been led away from his kingdom, chasing after false promises. But the greatest danger isn’t what lies ahead of Guinevere - it’s what’s been buried inside her.

Vowing to unravel the truth of her past with or without Merlin’s help, Guinevere joins forces with the sorceress Morgana and her son, Mordred - and faces the confusing, forbidden feelings she still harbors for him. When Guinevere makes an agonizing discovery about who she is and how she came to be, she finds herself with an impossible choice: fix a terrible crime, or help prevent war.

Guinevere is determined to set things right, whatever the cost. To defeat a rising evil. To remake a kingdom. To undo the mistakes of the past...even if it means destroying herself.

Guinevere has been a changeling, a witch, a queen - but what does it mean to be just a girl?"

Damn, I'm a sucker for all things Camelot!

Shadows of Swanford Abbey by Julie Klassen
Published by: Bethany House Publishers
Publication Date: December 7th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"News of her brother's worrisome behavior spurs Miss Rebecca Lane to return home to her village. Upon her arrival, he begs her to go to nearby Swanford Abbey, a medieval monastery turned grand hotel rumored to be haunted. Feeling responsible for her brother's desperate state, she reluctantly agrees to stay at the abbey until she can deliver his manuscript to a fellow guest who might help him get published - an author who once betrayed them.

Soon, Rebecca starts seeing strange things, including a figure in a hooded black gown gliding silently through the abbey's cloisters at night. For all its renovations and veneer of luxury, the ancient foundations seem to echo with whispers of the past - including her own. For there she encounters Sir Frederick - baronet, magistrate, and former neighbor - who long ago broke her heart. Now a handsome widower of thirty-five, he is trying to overcome a past betrayal of his own.

When the famous author is found dead, Sir Frederick makes inquiries and quickly discovers that several people held grudges against the author, including Miss Lane and her brother. As Sir Frederick searches for answers, he is torn between his growing feelings for Rebecca and his pursuit of the truth. For Miss Lane is clearly hiding something...."

It's like Jane Austen meets Midsomer Murders. You know, that episode in Maggie Smith's house from Gosford Park! 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alice Blanchard, Bryant and May, Camelot, Christopher Fowler, Elly Griffiths, Gerald Jay, Jane Austen, Julie Klassen, Kiersten White, Lyndsay Faye, Midsomer Murders, Sherlock Holmes, Tarot, The Midnight Hour

Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Published by: Tor Nightfire
Publication Date: September 21st, 2021
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The English language debut of the bestselling Dutch novel, Hex, from Thomas Olde Heuvelt - a Hugo and World Fantasy award nominated talent to watch.

Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay 'til death. Whoever settles, never leaves.

Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a seventeenth century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children's bed for nights on end. Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened or the consequences will be too terrible to bear.

The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into dark, medieval practices of the distant past.

This chilling novel heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in mainstream horror and dark fantasy."

A whole town being haunted? YAS!

All These Bodies by Kendare Blake
Published by: Quill Tree Books
Publication Date: September 21st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Sixteen bloodless bodies. Two teenagers. One impossible explanation. In this edge-of-your-seat mystery from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kendare Blake, the truth is as hard to believe as it is to find.

Summer 1958. A gruesome killer plagues the Midwest, leaving behind a trail of bodies completely drained of blood.

Michael Jensen, an aspiring journalist whose father happens to be the town sheriff, never imagined that the Bloodless Murders would come to his backyard. Not until the night the Carlson family was found murdered in their home. Marie Catherine Hale, a diminutive fifteen-year-old, was discovered at the scene - covered in blood. She is the sole suspect in custody.

Michael didn’t think that he would be part of the investigation, but he is pulled in when Marie decides that he is the only one she will confess to. As Marie recounts her version of the story, it falls to Michael to find the truth: What really happened the night that the Carlsons were killed? And how did one girl wind up in the middle of all these bodies?"

A fantastical In Cold Blood. 

Malpertuis by Jean Ray
Published by: Wakefield Press
Publication Date: September 21st, 2021
Format: Paperback, 256 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Jean Ray brilliantly upends the haunted-house tradition in this widely acclaimed puzzlebox of a novel.

A reinvention of the Gothic novel and an established classic of fantastic literature, Malpertuis is as inventive and gripping today as when it first appeared in French in the dark year of 1943.

Malpertuis is a puzzle box of nested narratives wrested from a set of manuscripts stolen from a monastery. A bizarre collection of distrustful relatives has gathered together in the ancient stone mansion of a sea-trading dynasty for the impending death of the occult scientist, Uncle Cassave, and the reading of his will. Forced to dwell together for the remainder of their lives within the stifling walls of Malpertuis for the sake of a cursed inheritance, their banal existence gradually gives way to love affairs and secret plots, as the building slowly exposes a malevolence that eventually leads to a series of ghastly deaths.

The eccentric personalities it houses - which include an obsessive taxidermist, a hypochondriac, a trio of vengeful sisters and a former paint store manager who has gone mad - begin to shed like skins to reveal yet another hidden story buried in the novel's structure, one that turns the haunted-house tradition on its head and culminates in an apocalyptic denouement."

I am ALL about different takes on the Gothic and the haunted house tradition in literature!

When Things Get Dark edited by Ellen Datlow
Published by: Titan Books
Publication Date: September 21st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A chilling anthology in tribute to the genius of Shirley Jackson, collecting today’s best horror writers. Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand and more.

A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by, and in tribute to, Shirley Jackson.

Shirley Jackson is a seminal writer of horror and mystery fiction, whose legacy resonates globally today. Chilling, human, poignant and strange, her stories have inspired a generation of writers and readers.

This anthology, edited by legendary horror editor Ellen Datlow, will bring together today’s leading horror writers to offer their own personal tribute to the work of Shirley Jackson.

Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Carmen Maria Machado, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand, Kelly Link, Cassandra Khaw, Karen Heuler, Benjamin Percy, John Langan, Laird Barron, Jeffrey Ford, M. Rickert, Seanan McGuire, Gemma Files, and Genevieve Valentine."

It's about Shirley Jackson, so I'm here for it! Though I find it funny that the stock photo is in use by a lot of books right now, even one my friend designed!

MR Cadmus by Peter Ackroyd
Published by: Canongate Books
Publication Date: September 21st, 2021
Format: Paperback, 192 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Two apparently harmless women reside in cottages one building apart in the idyllic English village of Little Camborne. Miss Finch and Miss Swallow, cousins, have put their pasts behind them and settled into conventional country life. But when a mysterious foreigner, Theodore Cadmus - from a Mediterranean island nobody has heard of - moves into the middle cottage, the safe monotony of their lives is shattered.

Soon, long-hidden secrets and long-held grudges threaten to surface, drawing all into a vortex of subterfuge, theft, violence, mayhem...and murder."

So, in other words, just my Midsomer Murders-esque kind of dream! 

Cats Galore Encore! by Susan Herbert
Published by: Thames and Hudson
Publication Date: September 21st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 192 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"This second litter of cultured cats delves further into the work of painter Susan Herbert, with another helping of cats in much-loved works of art.

This follow-up to the smash hit Cats Galore delves further into the work of artist Susan Herbert, whose delightful reimaginings of famous artworks have won her a devoted international following. Herbert’s first book, The Cats Gallery of Art, was published in 1990, and since then her work has appeared in numerous books, featuring cats in iconic works of art, as well as scenes from opera, Shakespearean plays, and the movies - all with her trademark blend of humor and her ability to capture those essential feline characteristics instantly recognizable to cat lovers everywhere.

In Cats Galore Encore!, furry felines take over yet more of the world’s most famous masterpieces. They crowd into the pages of the fifteenth-century Tres Riches Heures tapestry, zoom through the air as cherubs in royal portraits, before loosening things up in the nineteenth century as artists take paint and palette out into the countryside. Ranging from medieval illuminated manuscripts to old master stalwarts such as Rembrandt and Johannes Vermeer, through to the likes of Claude Monet and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, this second helping of cats in art will delight fans of the beloved artist."

Susan Herbert was everyone in the nineties and I am HERE FOR THE RENAISSANCE! 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: All These Bodies, Cats Galore Encore!, Hex, Jean Ray, Kendare Blake, Malpertuis, Midsomer Murders, MR Cadmus, Peter Ackroyd, Shirley Jackson, Susan Herbert, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, When Things Get Dark

Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by Nancy Springer
Published by: Wednesday Books
Publication Date: August 31st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Enola Holmes is back! Nancy Springer's nationally bestselling series and breakout Netflix sensation returns to beguile readers young and old in Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche.

Enola Holmes is the much younger sister of her more famous brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft. But she has all the wits, skills, and sleuthing inclinations of them both. At fifteen, she's an independent young woman - after all, her name spelled backwards reads 'alone' - and living on her own in London. When a young professional woman, Miss Letitia Glover, shows up on Sherlock's doorstep, desperate to learn more about the fate of her twin sister, it is Enola who steps up. It seems her sister, the former Felicity Glover, married the Earl of Dunhench and per a curt note from the Earl, has died. But Letitia Glover is convinced this isn't the truth, that she'd know - she'd feel - if her twin had died.

The Earl's note is suspiciously vague and the death certificate is even more dubious, signed it seems by a John H. Watson, M.D. (who denies any knowledge of such). The only way forward is for Enola to go undercover - or so Enola decides at the vehement objection of her brother. And she soon finds out that this is not the first of the Earl's wives to die suddenly and vaguely - and that the secret to the fate of the missing Felicity is tied to a mysterious black barouche that arrived at the Earl's home in the middle of the night. To uncover the secrets held tightly within the Earl's hall, Enola is going to require help - from Sherlock, from the twin sister of the missing woman, and from an old friend, the young Viscount Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwether!

Enola Holmes returns in her first adventure since the hit Netflix movie brought her back on the national bestseller lists, introducing a new generation to this beloved character and series."

Enola Holmes returns to her first home! The printed page! 

Murder Most Fair by Anna Lee Huber
Published by: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Publication Date: August 31st, 2021
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"All is far from quiet on the home front in USA Today bestselling author Anna Lee Huber's captivating mystery series, in which former Secret Service agent Verity Kent receives a visitor - who is being trailed by a killer...

November 1919. A relaxing few weeks by the seaside with her husband, Sidney, could almost convince Verity Kent that life has returned to the pleasant rhythm of pre-war days. Then Verity's beloved Great-Aunt Ilse lands on their doorstep. After years in war-ravaged Germany, Ilse has returned to England to repair her fragile health - and to escape trouble. Someone has been sending her anonymous threats, and Verity's Secret Service contacts can only provide unsettling answers.

Even deep in the Yorkshire Dales, where she joins Verity's family for the holidays, Ilse encounters difficulties. Normally peaceful neighbors are hostile, seeking someone to blame for the losses they've endured. When Ilse's maid is found dead, Verity must uncover whether this is anti-German sentiment taken to murderous lengths, or whether there is a more personal motive at work. Could Verity's shadowy nemesis, Lord Ardmore, be involved? And if so, how much closer to home will the blow land when he inevitably strikes again?"

Holidays in the Yorkshire Dales? YAS!

Murder at Wakehurst by Alyssa Maxwell
Published by: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Publication Date: August 31st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In the autumnal chill of Newport, Rhode Island, at the close of the nineteenth century, journalist Emma Cross discovers an instance of cold-blooded murder on the grounds of a mansion...

Following the death of her uncle, Cornelius Vanderbilt, in September 1899, a somber Emma is in no mood for one of Newport's extravagant parties. But to keep Vanderbilt's reckless son Neily out of trouble, she agrees to accompany him to an Elizabethan fete on the lavish grounds of Wakehurst, the Ochre Point "cottage" modeled after an English palace, owned by Anglophile James Van Alen.

Held in Wakehurst's English-style gardens, the festivities will include a swordplay demonstration, an archery competition, scenes from Shakespeare's plays, and even a joust. As Emma wanders the grounds distracted by grief, she overhears a fierce argument between a man and a woman behind a tall hedge. As the joust begins, she's drawn by the barking of Van Alen's dogs and finds a man on the ground, an arrow through his chest.

The victim is one of the 400's most influential members, Judge Clayton Schuyler. Could one of the countless criminals he'd imprisoned over the years have returned to seek revenge - or could one of his own family members have targeted him? With the help of her beau Derrick Andrews and Detective Jesse Whyte, Emma begins to learn the judge was not the straight arrow he appeared to be. As their investigation leads them in ever-widening circles, Emma will have to score a bull's eye to stop the killer from taking another life..."

This entry in this wonderful series sounds like Midsomer Murders Rhode Island! 

American Midnight: Tales of the Dark selected by by Laird Hunt
Published by: Pushkin Press
Publication Date: August 31st, 2021
Format: Paperback, 192 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A chilling collection of classic weird and supernatural tales from the dark heart of American literature.

A masquerade ball cut short by a mysterious plague; a strange nocturnal ritual in the woods; a black bobcat howling in the night: these ten tales are some of the most strange and unsettling in all of American literature, filled with unforgettable imagery and simmering with tension. From Edgar Allan Poe to Shirley Jackson, Nathaniel Hawthorne to Zora Neale Hurston, the authors of these classics of supernatural suspense have inspired generations of writers to explore the dark heart of the land of the free.

The stories in this collection have been selected and introduced by Laird Hunt, an author of seven acclaimed novels which explore the shadowy corners of American history.

Contains:

'The Masque of the Red Death', Edgar Allan Poe
'Young Goodman Brown', Nathaniel Hawthorne
'The Eyes', Edith Wharton
'The Mask', Robert Chambers
'Home', Shirley Jackson
'A Ghost Story', Mark Twain
'Spunk', Zora Neale Hurston
'The Yellow Wallpaper', Charlotte Perkins Gilman
'An Itinerant House', Emma Frances Dawson"

The inclusion of 'The Yellow Wallpaper' along makes this a must buy! All other (AMAZING) authors are icing on the cake!

The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith
Published by: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: August 31st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 448 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The Last Magician meets The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy in this thrilling and atmospheric historical fantasy following a young woman who discovers she has magical powers and is thrust into a battle between witches and wizards.

In 1911 New York City, seventeen-year-old Frances Hallowell spends her days as a seamstress, mourning the mysterious death of her brother months prior. Everything changes when she’s attacked and a man ends up dead at her feet - her scissors in his neck, and she can’t explain how they got there.

Before she can be condemned as a murderess, two cape-wearing nurses arrive to inform her she is deathly ill and ordered to report to Haxahaven Sanitarium. But Frances finds Haxahaven isn’t a sanitarium at all: it’s a school for witches. Within Haxahaven’s glittering walls, Frances finds the sisterhood she craves, but the headmistress warns Frances that magic is dangerous. Frances has no interest in the small, safe magic of her school, and is instead enchanted by Finn, a boy with magic himself who appears in her dreams and tells her he can teach her all she’s been craving to learn, lessons that may bring her closer to discovering what truly happened to her brother.

Frances’s newfound power attracts the attention of the leader of an ancient order who yearns for magical control of Manhattan. And who will stop at nothing to have Frances by his side. Frances must ultimately choose what matters more, justice for her murdered brother and her growing feelings for Finn, or the safety of her city and fellow witches. What price would she pay for power, and what if the truth is more terrible than she ever imagined?"

Because I love historical fiction and am still waiting for my letter from Hogwarts. 

Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket
Published by: Liveright
Publication Date: August 31st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 168 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A new stand-alone adventure - appropriate for all ages - by Lemony Snicket, one of the twenty-first century’s most beloved authors.

In the years since this publishing house was founded, we have worked with an array of wondrous authors who have brought illuminating clarity to our bewildering world. Now, instead, we bring you Lemony Snicket.

Over the course of his long and suspicious career, Mr. Snicket has investigated many things, including villainy, treachery, conspiracy, ennui, and various suspicious fires. In this book, he is investigating his own death.

Poison for Breakfast is a different sort of book than others we have published, and from others you may have read. It is different from other books Mr. Snicket has written. It could be said to be a book of philosophy, something almost no one likes, but it is also a mystery, and many people claim to like those. Certainly Mr. Snicket didn’t relish the dreadful task of solving it, but he had no choice. It was put in front of him, right there, on his plate."

Yes, I do claim to like mysteries. 

Friends Forever by Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham
Published by: First Second
Publication Date: August 31st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Following up their mega-bestselling Real Friends and Best Friends graphic memoirs, Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham are back with Friends Forever, a story about learning to love yourself exactly as you are.

Shannon is in eighth grade, and life is more complicated than ever. Everything keeps changing, her classmates are starting to date each other (but nobody wants to date her!), and no matter how hard she tries, Shannon can never seem to just be happy.

As she works through her insecurities and undiagnosed depression, she worries about disappointing all the people who care about her. Is something wrong with her? Can she be the person everyone expects her to be? And who does she actually want to be?

With their signature humor, warmth, and insight, Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham have crafted another incredible love letter to their younger selves and to readers everywhere, a reminder to us all that we are enough."

If you haven't yet discovered the genius of Shannon Hale, well, now's your chance!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alyssa Maxwell, American Midnight, Anna Lee Huber, Enola Holmes, Gilded Newport, Hogwarts, Lemony Snicket, LeUyen Pham, Midsomer Murders, Nancy Springer, Sasha Peyton Smith, Shannon Hale, Sherlock Holmes

Rebecca
Based on the book by Daphne Du Maurier
Starring: Joanna David, Elspeth March, Jeremy Brett, Hugh Morton, Richard Willis, Anna Massey, Terrence Hardiman, Vivian Pickles, Leon Sinden, William Morgan Sheppard, Julian Holloway, Virginia Denham, Sylvia Coleridge, Harriet Walter, Neville Hughes, Victor Lucas, Richardson Morgan, Robert Flemyng, and John Saunders
Release Date: 1979
Rating: ★★★★
Out of Print

Mrs. Van Hopper has her own friend of the bosom. Paid to be her companion, but really acting as her dogsbody. When Mrs. Van Hopper falls ill her friend catches the attention of widower Maxim de Winter and when Mrs. Van Hopper decides to head home to New York Maxim gives the young girl a choice; New York with Mrs. Van Hopper or Manderely with him. As his wife. She hastily marries Maxim and becomes the second Mrs. de Winter. Though she worries and frets that she won't be up to the job, especially once she sees Manderely in person and meets the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers. She feels overwhelmed and Mrs. Danvers does everything in her power to make things worse for her new mistress. It doesn't help that Rebecca has left her imprint everywhere, not just physically, but emotionally. She is in the hearts and minds of the staff, the locals, and even Maxim and his family. So much is expected of the new bride, even a lavish costume ball, just like Rebecca used to host. How is she to continue when Maxim is obviously questioning the wisdom of returning to Manderely? But is it the place or the new bride he regrets more? Only the revelation of a horrible secret will show the truth to the young bride. 

If you are looking for the most accurate adaptation of Rebecca you couldn't do better than this version made by the BBC in the late seventies if you tried, and oh how I've tried. While my heart will always belong to Alfred Hitchcock's version as the obsession of my youth, this one is now my favorite, in spite of the whole last episode being out of sync. This was just chock-a-block with 1970s BBC goodness. If shows like The Pallisers, The Duchess of Duke Street, and Upstairs, Downstairs are your idea of what quality TV should be, then this one's for you! There's a nostalgic quality to shows that went for acting chops over everything else. The sets might be recycled and familiar, yes, that is the window from the maid's garret in Upstairs, Downstairs in a dowdy room in Monte Carlo, and that is the drawing room from The Pallisers transplanted to Manderley with a desk hiding a certain broken cupid, but that just gives you the familiarity that makes this adaptation feel like coming home. While I had never seen this adaptation before, Jeremy Brett and Joanna David surrounded by so many actors I have seen for years and years on the small screen just made me giddy that for once I'd found a Rebecca with less to complain about that made me feel like I was visiting an old friend.

Though, this is me, so you know I will have something to complain about; and that complaint is Joanna David, though it's through no fault of her own. Or maybe a little because I didn't like how they bracketed the show with how she was telling someone about her dream about Manderley while wearing pearls, but that was the director's fault. So the reason I had issues with Joanna David was because of the 1997 adaptation of Rebecca staring Emilia Fox and Charles Dance. Emilia Fox not only played the second Mrs. de Winter, a role here played by Joanna David, but she happens to be Joanna David's daughter. I've never really thought of them looking too much alike, but watching this adaptation from the seventies, I'd occasionally catch a similarity, the way Joanna tilted her head or pursed her lips and I wouldn't be seeing her anymore I'd be seeing her daughter and seeing the same expressions flit across her face was almost unnerving. Oh, how I wish I had seen this adaptation first. Because to constantly remind me of the atrocity that was the 1997 adaptation is a sin. Yet it's a sin that, logically, I shouldn't hold against them because this other adaptation was almost twenty years in the future. But then again I am fickle. Thankfully Jeremy Brett is no Charles Dance.

Yet then there's the perfection of Anna Massey as Mrs. Danvers to make you forget your woes. If I were to gather up all the Mrs. Danvers she would win hands down. She is perfection without ever veering too far into the crazy skid. She's not self-immolating like Judith Anderson or the only bright, yet undeniably unhinged, spot in a horrid production like Diana Rigg. She's simply perfection. Because the truth is Mrs. Danvers is a real human, not a caricature, and despite all her actions, they are rooted in her connection and love for Rebecca, no matter how obsessive that love was. I first fell in love with Anna Massey's acting when I watched He Knew He Was Right. This is a pitch perfect adaptation of Anthony Trollope's book that I love so much I even mentioned it to David Tennant that time I met him. Anna Massey stands in the way of a marriage but will break your heart when she relents to the match. After this I started searching out her work and realized I'd seen her for years in everything from Midsomer Murders to The Darling Buds of May. Yet it's the scene in Rebecca's bedroom when she shows it off to the second Mrs. de Winter that she will destroy you with her range. Going from triumph to boasting to melancholy all in the blink of an eye. Grief as restrained madness. Perfection! 

You'd think with all this superb talent that everyone is perfection in the cast. Well, you'd be wrong because there's Jack Favell... Jack is usually the character that is always gotten right even in the worst of productions. But here? Julian Holloway isn't Jack. Not. One. Bit. Jack is a slimy character, a smooth operator who has no moral compass and you could easily see as jumping into bed with his cousin. Therefore he needs to be equally repellent and alluring. Here he's just repellant. He's a "good old boy" who you'd expect to see wandering around the grounds in plus fours! Rebecca wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole! Oddly enough there's a modern equivalent acting today, Rory Kinnear. This Jack IS 100% like all the characters Rory Kinnear played for years. I have spent years bemoaning him being everywhere, especially in National Theatre Live productions. Two years ago I swear he was in every single production so I avoided that season like the plague. But for as much as I dislike him, annoying me to no end with his profuse body of work, he at least has range, and a few productions I actually liked him in. This proto-Kinnear? He has the range of a teaspoon.

There is one thing though, besides giving this version a proper release, that would easily upgrade it in my opinion, and that is if the music were fixed. The score of this adaptation is literally all over the place. At the beginning of the third part for about three minutes I thought they might have finally gotten it right and then it slid back into a mish-mash of styles. You will catch glimpses of Debussy, which might have occasionally worked, especially as it sounds like, according to my brother, that they might have been using "La Mer" which would be appropriate, but then as the happy couple approaches Manderely the music goes all old school cinema. You feel like you're watching an old reel where the dastardly villain is twirling his mustache while he ties the maiden to the tracks and waits for the train to arrive. I assume the train in this musicians mind is Mrs. Danvers, but who knows. It's almost comical in it's appearance. But for how much that music might have been too old school and inappropriate, don't worry, here are some synths thrown in to make it modern or to, I don't know, remind you it's the seventies despite the fact Rebecca doesn't take place in the seventies? Seriously, the music needs an overhaul.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Anna Massey, Daphne Du Maurier, Du Maurier December, Emilia Fox, He Knew He Was Right, Jeremy Brett, Joanna David, Midsomer Murders, Rebecca, Rory Kinnear, The Pallisers, Upstairs Downstairs

That Silent Night by Tasha Alexander
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: October 16th, 2018
Format: Kindle, 71 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Colin has returned to Anglemore Park to spend the holidays with his family and eat his weight in mince pies. Of course nothing in Colin and Emily's life ever goes to plan, as is evidenced by the torch wielding villagers that have arrived at their door. Thankfully they are not about to be plunged into a Gothic drama as their butler Davis worried, because they are without pitchforks and have come for their liege's help. A dozen of the residents of Dunsford Vale, one of Anglemore Park's estate villages, are awkwardly seated in the cinnamon drawing room when they reveal that their problem is the arrival of a beast born out of local legend. Dunsford Vale is being plagued by a barghest. Emily almost laughs at the suggestion of the mythical monstrous black dog that folklore says heralds death and can be warded off with coffin nails. Seeing as she's only lived in Derbyshire for eight years her stance on the barghest is expected by the locals. What Emily doesn't expect is for Colin to believe them! He's an agent of the crown, a sensible man who has thrown all sense out the window. Could Colin be appeasing the villagers while planning on doing a proper investigation under the guise of a barghest hunt? As Emily and Colin dig deeper into the sightings, the missing food, the dead sheep, one person in the village seems more troubled by the beast than any other, the unfortunate Miss Fletcher. What could the beast have to do with Miss Fletcher? And can they solve the riddle of the barghest before Christmas so that things can get back to normal?

The second Davis asked if Emily and Colin were about to be plunged into a Gothic drama my first reaction was to snort with laughter, my second was to hope it was true. AND IT WAS! Not the ghostly Gothic in a foreign land, but the monstrous Gothic complete with a fainting heroine! It was Lady Emily does The Hound of the Baskervilles! Seeing as I revel in anything the slightest bit Gothic and I had literally just re-read The Hound of the Baskervilles for book club this mash-up was right up my alley! I can't believe I'd never heard of a barghest before as it fits neatly under the black spectral dog haunting that covers everything from the grim, made famous in my mind by Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, to the ghostly huntsman and his hounds who inspired Arthur Conan Doyle, to Yeth Hounds, a possibility that Emily's most astute son points out when no one has died from seeing the barghest. While I love all Emily's adventures I have become really invested in these Christmas tales. Tasha seems to free herself of all constraints and it's go big or go home time. The more absurd, the more fantastical the idea, the more humor, the more heart, the more holiday she is able to infuse it with. Missing jewels and Sebastian the gentleman thief baiting Emily's mother, a true ghost story, and now a spectral hound!?! When are these tales going to be collected in one volume that I can place on my bookshelf? I seriously need to know because these tales are the perfect concentration of everything I love most about Tasha's writing.

Though the true test of Tasha's writing is that she is able to create these characters we never want to let go. Every time I start one of her stories I hope my favorites will appear. I know it doesn't make sense to have Jeremy, Cecile, Margaret, Ivy, Davis, Nanny, the boys, and everyone else ever featured in every story, but that doesn't mean I don't hope for the revolving cast of characters to all appear at once. This attention to character is what makes Amid the Winter's Snow standout for me. The best stories, the best mysteries, in my mind are the ones where you could just hang out with the characters forever. Who cares if the culprit is caught so long as you are entertained by the inhabitants of the pages. This is why my most favorite British TV show of all time is Midsomer Murders. Yes, it strains credulity that they still have any population after all the murders and murderers in their midst. But all these quaintly named little towns are peopled with the most eccentric folks. That is how I felt about Dunsford Vale! This was like a turn of the century Badger's Drift haunted by a hound! The little old lady who cursed the hound away, the young girl who lost her fiance but still found solace in baking for the town, the sheep farmer who was willing to admit his sheep might have just wandered away instead of falling victim to a barghest, the shopkeeper who is viewed as an outsider because he moved to town at three months old. I felt intrigued and invested in each and every one of these characters. Of course now I'm going to want them to come back... damn, it's a double-edged sword falling in love with Tasha's characters...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexander Autumn, Amid the Winter's Snow, Arthur Conan Doyle, Barghest, Christmas, Gothic, Grim, Harry Potter, Lady Emily, Midsomer Murders, Spectral Hound, Tasha Alexander, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Persuasion
Based on the book by Jane Austen
Release Date: April 1st, 2007
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Alice Krige, Anthony Head, Julia Davis, Michael Fenton Stevens, Mary Stockley, Peter Wight, Marion Bailey, Amanda Hale, Sam Hazeldine, Jennifer Higham, Rosamund Stephen, Stella Gonet, Nicholas Farrell, Louis Shergold, Rupert Penry-Jones, Joseph Mawle, Finlay Robertson, Tobias Menzies, Maisie Dimbleby, Sarah Buckland, and Tilly Tremayne
Rating: ★★★★★
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All is chaos at Kellynch Hall. Anne Elliot, the daughter of Sir Walter Elliot and the younger sister of Elizabeth Elliot has tried all she could to get her family to retrench but the time has come to face reality. As her father and sister stuff their faces with delicacies the decision has been made to lease the house and move the family to Bath. The father of Elizabeth's dear friend Mrs. Clay has found a naval man without children to take the house. A perfect fit, as his wife has nothing to do but make sure the house is preserved. Though upon hearing that their name is Croft Anne is beset by emotions she thought long gone. Eight years previously she was engaged to Mrs. Croft's brother, Fredrick Wentworth. The engagement was broken as it was viewed he didn't have any prospects. He is now a wealthy captain and is coming back into Anne's life looking for a wife. Anne has no hope that she might regain his heart, instead tucked away with her younger sister Mary at Uppercross she sees Fredrick set his cap at Mary's sisters-in-law, Louise and Henrietta Musgrove. Anne is aflutter and constantly aware of his presence. He is kind, but he is no longer hers and it aches so painfully. When the party from Uppercross takes a trip to Lyme Regis the expected course of all their lives is upended. Louisa has a fall and Captain Wentworth's friends must nurse her back to health while Anne is sent off to Bath to rejoin her family. Soon Captain Wentworth comes to Bath and Anne can't help hoping that perhaps things have changed. Perhaps she can hope again. She has somehow attracted the attention of her cousin and her father's heir, Mr. Elliot, and could this jealousy spark Captain Wentworth into making his feelings known? Or will Fredrick lose the love of his life because he embraced the opposite of all that he initially regretted in Anne's behavior all those years earlier?

ITV's Jane Austen season of 2007 did a lot to rectify issues I had in previous Austen adaptations. Consisting of Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion, while Northanger Abbey easily won the day, Persuasion wasn't that far behind. What this adaptation did while not being 100% faithful to the book was to give us an intimate, introspective, and artistic adaptation that emotionally connects you to Anne Elliot. This adaptation favored music that pulled on your heartstrings instead of attempting to jam all the book's dialogue into a ninety minute movie. This allows the quiet to fill the space, to let you dwell as Anne has dwelled on the loss of Wentworth all those years ago. You can actually feel a void opening up inside you as Anne's pain becomes your own. In this adaptation Anne is always the touchstone for the audience. She is front and center, it is her POV that we take as our own. The camera work reinforces this with her always on screen while other characters are off screen, their dialogue sometimes buried in the background, not fully heard, because as Anne is our conduit we only observe what she does and a human can only see and hear so much, they're not omniscient. Yet it takes awhile for the viewer to get at what the director is trying to do. For the first few minutes all you can think of is how jittery the handheld camera work is and how close the closeups are. But then you start to realize that the agitation in the camera work reflects Anne's state of mind, and while yes, it's jittery, you realize that it also makes what would be a static image on a television screen alive. The camera and Anne have a symbiotic relationship, with the modern technology being there to reflect Anne's emotions. This can be seen when Anne looks directly into the camera. It's not gimmicky like in Mansfield Park with a wry and arched brow that makes you want to slap Frances O'Conner or just too much like in The House of Mirth where you're counting Eric Stoltz's pores, here it lays bare Anne's soul thanks to Sally Hawkins's portrayal. Sally Hawkins is such an amazing actress that the smallest facial gesture, the intimation of a tear conveys so much. So while this adaptation doesn't go for strict accuracy the feeling is correct and that can cover a plethora of sins.

Yet sometimes the lack of faithfulness results in absurdities. The main absurdity of this adaptation is Anne and the running of Bath. As in, she seriously runs all over Bath after Captain Wentworth. First she runs after him when he suddenly leaves a concert and accosts him in the entryway. Secondly she runs after him when he leaves the Elliot's residence after he was inquiring after Kellynch Hall for his sister. This then starts the main running sequence that rivals Frank Potente's race through Berlin in Run Lola Run. She runs outside and is directed to the Croft's residence where she runs into Captain Harville who gives her Wentworth's letter and sends her to the Pump Room, where the Croft's say she's just missed him, and at this point when she starts running again, you might be laughing a little, because seriously, all the running! Yes, a panting Anne finally runs into Wentworth and all is well. But seriously, ALL THAT RUNNING THOUGH! Even Anne's poor friend Mrs. Smith had to run to tell Anne the truth about Mr. Elliot and his schemes. Yes, Mrs. Smith, who in the book can't even walk due to her horrid health joins Anne on a leg of her epic race. From the Elliot residence to the Croft residence running along the Royal Crescent actually away from the main part of town and everyone's residences for those who know Bath and who know where everyone in the book lives, poor Mrs. Smith is panting out her story. She's trying to break through to a distracted Anne about Mr. Elliot and yet, all I could think of was, seriously, stop running for five seconds and hear her out! But what bothered me more than just the absurdity of this situation was that this shows a total lack of propriety. A woman in this time period would NEVER have done this. And yes, I know that by showing Anne breaking with convention it shows how her love for Captain Wentworth overrides all other concerns. But still! This is Anne Elliot! It's a total break in her character. If I wasn't so emotionally invested by this point I would have totally written off the adaptation for this need for speed. But as it is, I was there for every single second of her run panting with fervent hope that she wouldn't be too late.

Of course the observant reader will notice that this running was all necessitated by the moving of some important dialogue to an earlier part of the book. Anne's speech about women loving longest after all hope is gone is originally said to Captain Harville and overhead by Captain Wentworth, leading to him writing his soul piercing confession which reunites them near the end of the book. Instead Anne's speech is entrusted to Benwick when they are all seated at the Harville's home in Lyme Regis. In between talking about poetry and prose she decides to drop her big speech as a confidence to Benwick while Wentworth is way on the other side of the room being quite boisterous and therefore he doesn't hear it. This of course then forces the narrative to find some other contrivance for Wentworth to hope and write that letter to Anne. Here it's Wentworth coming to the Elliot's residence in Bath and asking if his sister and brother-in-law should give up the lease on Kellynch because news has reached them that Mr. Elliot and Anne are to live there once they are married. Anne of course refutes this instantly and then is interrupted by Lady Russell and the running begins. This asking after Kellynch is just too forced. Too direct. Anne and Wentworth are both stumbling in the dark unable to realize that the other is still in love with them and this just seems too active. The way Austen wrote it is sweet. It dawns on Wentworth how wrong he was and thus lays his heart bare in the only way he has at his disposal, a letter. How else is he to hope unless he overhears Anne's speech? Asking after a lease on a house, that's not romantic, it's pragmatic. Plus he goes home, then writes the letter, then has to be hunted down. It's just too much work. There's also the fact that we know how they both feel so this seems to be done just to draw out the suspense a little longer. You can't have perfect happiness without a little hurdle, and apparently the previous eight years wasn't enough for this adaptation.

But any faults can be forgiven, even the odd detail of Captain Wentworth apparently buying Kellynch Hall, by the superb cast. You couldn't hope for a better cast. Of course the casting that made me giddy was that of Anthony Stewart Head as Sir Walter Elliot. Buffy fan that I am seeing "Giles" relish playing this vain and pompous man was a dream come true. Seriously, just cast him in almost anything and I'll watch. I say almost because there's no way anyone's getting me to watch that Shondaland show Still Star-Crossed. As for the rest of the cast, yes, it's a little weird seeing The Borg as Lady Russell, but she's a far less domineering Lady Russell than other versions, and I appreciate that. But I'm not going to sit here and just list why I love every actor, and seriously, I love every single actor in this all the way down to Cully's husband from Midsomer Murders, when there are two that need to be talked of, Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones. Sally Hawkins has been the darling of independent British cinema for years, especially working with Mike Leigh, even winning a plethora of awards for their collaboration Happy-Go-Lucky. But it's her more miniseries roots that brought her to my attention first in Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, and later in The Young Visiters, Byron, and the Sarah Waters adaptations of Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith. Yet it's in Persuasion that you can see how she can inhabit a role so completely that dialogue isn't even needed to convey what she is feeling. As for Rupert Penry-Jones, well I might have written him off as a pretty boy with The Prince of Hearts, Cambridge Spies, Casanova, and his basically replacing Matthew Macfadyen on Spooks, but then I watched Whitechapel. Holy hell, that show is amazing and his portrayal of a driven yet completely OCD DI makes it one of my favorite shows ever. Persuasion mined the best of British drama and has a stellar cast that makes you shake your head in amazement that all these people are in one place at one time.

Though I feel that this review would be incomplete without me taking a shot at PBS. Oh PBS, I have so many issues with you. Seriously, SO MANY. Substandard releases could be brought up here, but instead I'm going to take you to task for your editing. Seriously!?! Stop it! Thankfully you've basically stopped editing the DVD releases because of the fan outcry for which I really have to thank Downton Abbey. But I'm still waiting for my Sally Lockhart mysteries with the sex scene back in... Instead I'm going to bitch about your broadcast editing. I watched this adaptation of Persuasion when it first aired in England, then when it finally aired the following January on PBS I was excited to watch it again but found it lacking. As in lacking all scenes with Captain Wentworth and Captain Harville talking to each other in and around Lyme Regis. I actually had to turn it off I was so enraged. Here's the thing about movies, television shows, any kind of visual broadcast: it's the vision of a person or group of persons that go to the trouble to make this beautiful show. That vision should NEVER been lessened, censored, or randomly changed not for "objectionable" reasons but to make more time for your sponsors! PBS made a pledge to bring quality television to America and more and more it's about the appearance of doing so without actually doing it. Even since Exxon left Masterpiece no longer theater has been in a steep decline and it's come to the point where I no longer even watch the channel. I can't abide editing, and as for speeding up the frame rate, which you totally did during season one of Poldark, it actually makes me physically sick. Also, why can't you air shows at the same time as England? I mean, you've fixed it with Sherlock so what gives!?! Yes, I know, I shouldn't end a review that is glowingly in favor of a production with a negative, but do you ever get the feeling that PBS isn't really involved in these shows at all and is just taking credit for what the BBC and ITV are doing?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Anthony Stewart Head, Bicentenary Ball, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ITV, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Midsomer Murders, PBS, Persuasion, Run Lola Run, Rupert Penry-Jones, Sally Hawkins, Whitechapel