strange and random happenstance

Hell's Belles (Brenda and Effie Book 4) by Paul Magrs
Book Provided by Headline Publishing
Published by: Headline Publishing
Publication Date: 2009
Format: Paperback, 448 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy
Whitby is abuzz. The approach to Halloween usually means the town is deep in preparations for the annual Goth Weekend. But this year brings even more excitement. Whitby is to be the location for the remake of Get Thee Inside Me, Satan, which will film it's climax at the ruined abbey on Halloween night. The movie that was filmed in the sixties and has been wiped off the face of the earth because of the curse that lives within the film. Death and destruction have followed in this films wake. Yet one day at the local thrift store, Penny, Robert's new assistant up at the Hotel Mirramar, finds a copy of the film on DVD. How is this possible? This film should not exist in any form. Penny can't help herself. The coincidence is too much and she buys the film. She needs to see the original, see if it's true that the film holds pure evil, see if it's true that the star, Karla Sorenson, hasn't aged a day as she readies to film the remake, see if she, Penny, can survive watching it with her sanity intact.

Meanwhile, Brenda has been off gallivanting with her husband Frank, but she is returning for Goth Weekend. Her B and B will be filled to the rafters. Though she knows in her water that the filming in Whitby is bad news when she confirms that Karla Sorenson is there. Brenda was there, in the creepy quarry in Wales, all those years ago when the original film released evil into the world. And Karla remembers her. With mysterious arrivals in town and evil afoot, the film's curse looks as if it could bring all of Whitby to hell. Unless Brenda and Effie with their posse can bring a stop to Karla and her enrapturing ways as well as the mysterious Brethren.

Their is something primal about horror films. Everyone remembers their first real horror film that brought nightmares for years to come. That might still give you nightmares! The mere mention of the film brings chills to this day. For me it was The Legend of Hell House. Britain dominated the making of low budget B grade horror films in the sixties and seventies, Hammer Films being the most prolific and well known. While The Legend of Hell House wasn't a Hammer production, it had all the hallmarks of British cinema at the height of horror; a few "name" stars with Roddy McDowell and Michael Gough, a house steeped in evil where no one makes it out alive, and implied psychological horror versus too much on-screen gore.

I can still remember the morning I first watched the film. It was August the second, 1996 or 1997. Our house had just been tpeed, with over 167 rolls of toilet paper. It was a grey day, where it feels like it's constantly twilight or dawn out, you just can't tell; wet and humid, where your clothes stick to you no matter what you do. We spent hours and hours cleaning. When we cleaned up as much as we could, I was so exhausted I just came in the house and sat on the couch and turned on AMC. The Legend of Hell House was just starting. I have never been the biggest fan of scary movies, but that day I stayed my hand on the remote. I was a fan of Roddy McDowell and Gayle Hunnicutt, who I loved on Dallas was also in it. I don't know if it was just the exhaustion or the subject matter, but this movie freaked me out beyond belief. Weird possessions, mysterious deaths, nothing really scary, just the feeling of the whole. The movie come through my mental barriers and has forever haunted me.

Therefore, a film, albeit imaginary, but of the same school, thought to be actually possessed by the devil doesn't seem that far fetched to me as I think back to that fateful day in August. Paul was able to use his story to tap into my preexisting fears to create a delicious and scary read. While I was curled up in a comfy chair on a hot August day, I was also on that lumpy couch with my clothes plastered to me watching The Legend of Hell House for the first time. While I've enjoyed and loved Paul's writing in the previous Brenda and Effie books, I had never felt so connected with his writing as I was with Hells Belles. You could feel his love of this tacky genre and it made the book shine. He created something magical and luckily I was just drawn into the pages of a book, not into a quarry in Wales in the sixties.

Everything else was just icing on the cake. The introduction of new characters, from Penny Danby (that last name is so going to be important), the run away housewife Goth, to Michael, the mysterious Irish lad, to Karla the unaging vamp and the thrift store ladies who have other things in mind than "saving the kiddies." The final reveal of Mrs. Claus's secret, which has been building up and hinted at for quite some time, to the return of someone instrumental to Brenda's past. All of this is just extra wonderfulness on top of this horror movie framework. Next please!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brenda and Effie, Dallas, Frankenstein, Get Thee Inside Me Satan, Goth Weekend, Halloween, Hell's Belles, Horror, Paul Magrs, Roddy McDowell, The Legend of Hell House, Whitby

Wishing all readers a Happy Halloween from the denizens of Whitby, Pandas everywhere, Art Critics and otherwise, Paul Magrs and Me, Miss Eliza. May it be a memorable one! Perhaps with a little punch up in true Brenda and Effie style.

*Thanks to the amazing artist Bret Herholz for letting me use one of his sketches of Brenda and Effie! The Rocky Horror font though is all me.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Art Critic, Brenda and Effie, Bret Herholz, Halloween, Magrs Month, Pandas, Paul Magrs, Whitby

This Sunday we veer away from the more generalized questions and concentrate on what this month is all about, before I dedicated it to Paul. The Gothic, the macabre, and Halloween!

Question: Have you ever gone to the Whitby Goth Weekend? 

Answer: The Whitby Bookshop – a lovely independent bookstore with a friendly staff and a rickety spiral staircase – has held Brenda and Effie evenings each Beltane and Hallowe’en for as long as the Brenda books have been coming out. Each time it’s during Goth weekend, and they attract a lovely crowd – usually dressed up in Goth and Steampunk finery. I sit on a red velvet chair and read them a bit and do a Q+A and sign all their books.

Question: Authors Bram Stoker, Lewis Carroll, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and A.S. Byatt all have had ties or works set in Whitby. What is the lure of Whitby? 



Answer: Whitby is an amazing place to visit – and it’s one of the most literary spots in the country. The first poet in written English was Caedmon – a cattle drover who lived at the Abbey – so it’s an extremely long lineage of those who’ve sent their characters running up and down those 199 steps. It’s an epic landscape and a cosy town – the perfect setting for the kind of stories I love.

Question: With new adaptations coming out every few years and with the recent success of the National Theatre’s production of Frankenstein, what do you think makes the story of Frankenstein withstand the test of time?

Answer: It’s a great story and has great characters – in both its literary and film incarnations. But it also taps into very big questions about what it means to be a human being and, beyond that, a person. The monster’s quest is about earning the right to be seen as a person in his own right.

The poor, abandoned Bride gets an ever rougher time than he does. Brenda’s search is always about becoming her own woman.

Question: Do you have an end goal in sight for Brenda and Effie, or will they keep toddling along messing with the mystical in Whitby?

Answer: Book Six is about to be published – ‘Brenda and Effie Forever!’ And you’ll see that they come to a kind of conclusion.

However… I’m working on something that will take them into a new dimension, of sorts.

Question: Do you ever hypothetically cast your books for the long overdue adaptations? And if so, who would you cast? Because if you don’t, I have some suggestions!

Answer: I try not to while I’m actually writing the things. But there’s lots of fun to be had doing that kind of casting once the books are finished. I love listening to people’s suggestions for Brenda and Effie character casting. I’m not even sure who I think of by now. Who do you think..?

I personally think that Geraldine James would be perfect for Brenda. Sure she's mainly known for the newer Robert Downey Junior Sherlock and Little Britain, but she's a fierce actress and has enough of a presence to do Brenda justice. As for Effie, I always see Annette Crosbie. She always comes across as funny and a little do-lally, but, if you've watched An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, you know she can kick some ass. As for Robert... hard choice, I picture him kind of innocent, like Thomas Howes as William from Downton, but he's too young, so let's go with Arthur Darvill from Doctor Who! I wish he could have ditched Amy and gone traveling with the Doctor alone... but that leaves him open for Brenda and Effie!

Question: October is the best month, ever. Disputable or indisputable?

Answer: I love Hallowe’en – and I think I might like November even more, though. This year’s perfect because the Hallowe’en Goth weekend in Whitby falls on the first weekend in November. I’m a Scorpio – so it’s home to me, really, this time of year. I like frosty blue mornings; misty afternoons with mulchy leaves, woodsmoke, wearing long coats and scarves and drinking spicy tea – and early nights with spooky old films and ghost stories and French red wine.

Question: Best Halloween costume you’ve ever had?

Answer: Best costume? When I was nine we had a wonderful teacher who directed our whole class in a twenty minute long, musical version of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. Many of us were chosen to be trolls and we had marvelous costumes – mostly shredded old clothes – that came out again for that Hallowe’en and traipsing around our council estate, knocking on doors and giving people the screaming ab-dabs.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Arthur Darvill, Brenda and Effie, Bride of Frankenstien, Doctor Who, Dracula, Frankenstein, Halloween, Paul Magrs, Peer Gynt, Sherlock Holmes, Whitby

The Bride That Time Forgot (Brenda and Effie Book 5) by Paul Magrs
Book Provided by Headline Publishing
Published by: Headline Publishing
Publication Date: 2010
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy
Even in Whitby Brenda's life might be going to the bad. Sure there have been dangers before, but they've always found a way to have a punch up and be victorious. The return of Effie's fancy man Alucard might be the turning point. Because Brenda may be in denial about what this once and possibly still evil vampire has done to her best friend. She doesn't want to go accusing Alucard of turning Effie unless she is certain, and she sure doesn't want to be certain. Yet, there is no way of denying that the vampire population in Whitby is on the rise... which brings Henry Cleavis back into Brenda's life. Brenda sure does have her trouble with men, either they're monsters, like her MIA husband, or monster hunters, like Henry.

If vampirism wasn't enough, there is a new bookshop in town, The Spooky Finger, run by an odd lady, Marjorie Staynes, who doesn't quite get that a book club should have a broad range of reading material, and instead focuses on the works of Mrs. Beatrice Mapp, an Edwardian writer, who placed the majority of her work in the fictional land of Qab, where men are subservient to women, which is the main draw for the book club. But the name Beatrice Mapp sparks something in Brenda's mind... what is her personal connection to Beatrice, and, on a side note, Marjorie's assistant and Robert's new plaything, Gila, looks suspicious like the subservient lizard race of Qab. Could Qab be real? Before long there are vampire attacks and portals to other places with tears in the very fabric of time, yet the strangest thing that happens is that Brenda willingly, if begrudgingly, takes the help of Mrs. Claus. Maybe that is the first sign that it's the end of days?

Qab. That land before time of garish colors where Jane Fonda from Barbarella wouldn't be incongruous. Qab was interesting, as was the Professor Challenger "Lost World" vibe. Yet, it felt wrong somehow. Spending so much time and energy on a place that's not the Whitby I know and love. This really pushed the series, not in a different way, but in a direction that, while logical, I wasn't that keen on embracing. My brother was always the "Land of the Lost" person in the family. He had the bad eighties posters of dinosaurs with mauve skies that would make your eyes water. I was never into this prehistoric or postapocalyptic man-eating Eden. Also, not to mention my nightmares of dinosaur dioramas from the Milwaukee County Museum, this volume just didn't grab me. We had just another creative medium that creates a vortex, like the previous installment and the film, Get They Inside Me, Satan. Personally, if I had to chose, a film would be a better vortex of evil than a book any day...

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the book and there where aspects that I loved. Effie finally going to the bad after all the hints and intimations, a book club that is really a cult. Because truly, if you think about it, I spent years trying to find a book club, and they're hard to break into, so, really, they are very much like a cult. I give Penny big props for getting on the inside, even if sometimes she started to believe the retoric. Mrs. Mapp and Bloomsbury! Adored this! I love that how Brenda describes Mrs. Mapp's writing, or more truthfully, her channeling of Qab. I knew something was up with her writing style, it was too much like Automatic Writing, where the writing is "produced from a subconscious, and/or external and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content." I have always found Automatic Writing fascinating, and to have it in this book made me a little giddy, if truth be told. There where a few things that where left open ended, which I hope will be handled in the next book, mainly, the Limbosine and what happened to Leena.

Finally onto the nit picky. The switch back to first-person narrative was a bit jarring. It's not like this series hasn't utilized it, but since the third book we've been in third-person narration which made sense considering the expanding cast of characters and certain events that made Brenda unable to continue the narration herself. Here it seems to be occasionally forcing the narrative back on Brenda or Effie in her letters to Alucard, so that all news and events must filter through them and it's kind of awkward. Even more awkward is the fact that the book doesn't stay in first-person, but jumps back to third-person or vice versa, sometimes in the same chapter. The really really long chapters. I like third-person, it works for these books, even if we lose Brenda's voice, her voice is so strong now it can survive the change over from first-person.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Automatic Writing, Barbarella, Book Clubs, Brenda and Effie, Dracula, First-Person, Mrs. Mapp, Paul Magrs, Qab, The Bride that Time Forgot, The Lost World, Thrid-Person, Vampires, Whitby

Hell's Belles (Brenda and Effie Book 4) by Paul Magrs
Book Provided by Headline Publishing
Published by: Headline Publishing
Publication Date: 2009
Format: Paperback, 448 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy
Whitby is abuzz. The approach to Halloween usually means the town is deep in preparations for the annual Goth Weekend. But this year brings even more excitement. Whitby is to be the location for the remake of Get Thee Inside Me, Satan, which will film it's climax at the ruined abbey on Halloween night. The movie that was filmed in the sixties and has been wiped off the face of the earth because of the curse that lives within the film. Death and destruction have followed in this films wake. Yet one day at the local thrift store, Penny, Robert's new assistant up at the Hotel Mirramar, finds a copy of the film on DVD. How is this possible? This film should not exist in any form. Penny can't help herself. The coincidence is too much and she buys the film. She needs to see the original, see if it's true that the film holds pure evil, see if it's true that the star, Karla Sorenson, hasn't aged a day as she readies to film the remake, see if she, Penny, can survive watching it with her sanity intact.

Meanwhile, Brenda has been off gallivanting with her husband Frank, but she is returning for Goth Weekend. Her B and B will be filled to the rafters. Though she knows in her water that the filming in Whitby is bad news when she confirms that Karla Sorenson is there. Brenda was there, in the creepy quarry in Wales, all those years ago when the original film released evil into the world. And Karla remembers her. With mysterious arrivals in town and evil afoot, the film's curse looks as if it could bring all of Whitby to hell. Unless Brenda and Effie with their posse can bring a stop to Karla and her enrapturing ways as well as the mysterious Brethren.

Their is something primal about horror films. Everyone remembers their first real horror film that brought nightmares for years to come. That might still give you nightmares! The mere mention of the film brings chills to this day. For me it was The Legend of Hell House. Britain dominated the making of low budget B grade horror films in the sixties and seventies, Hammer Films being the most prolific and well known. While The Legend of Hell House wasn't a Hammer production, it had all the hallmarks of British cinema at the height of horror; a few "name" stars with Roddy McDowell and Michael Gough, a house steeped in evil where no one makes it out alive, and implied psychological horror versus too much on-screen gore.

I can still remember the morning I first watched the film. It was August the second, 1996 or 1997. Our house had just been tpeed, with over 167 rolls of toilet paper. It was a grey day, where it feels like it's constantly twilight or dawn out, you just can't tell; wet and humid, where your clothes stick to you no matter what you do. We spent hours and hours cleaning. When we cleaned up as much as we could, I was so exhausted I just came in the house and sat on the couch and turned on AMC. The Legend of Hell House was just starting. I have never been the biggest fan of scary movies, but that day I stayed my hand on the remote. I was a fan of Roddy McDowell and Gayle Hunnicutt, who I loved on Dallas was also in it. I don't know if it was just the exhaustion or the subject matter, but this movie freaked me out beyond belief. Weird possessions, mysterious deaths, nothing really scary, just the feeling of the whole. The movie come through my mental barriers and has forever haunted me.

Therefore, a film, albeit imaginary, but of the same school, thought to be actually possessed by the devil doesn't seem that far fetched to me as I think back to that fateful day in August. Paul was able to use his story to tap into my preexisting fears to create a delicious and scary read. While I was curled up in a comfy chair on a hot August day, I was also on that lumpy couch with my clothes plastered to me watching The Legend of Hell House for the first time. While I've enjoyed and loved Paul's writing in the previous Brenda and Effie books, I had never felt so connected with his writing as I was with Hells Belles. You could feel his love of this tacky genre and it made the book shine. He created something magical and luckily I was just drawn into the pages of a book, not into a quarry in Wales in the sixties.

Everything else was just icing on the cake. The introduction of new characters, from Penny Danby (that last name is so going to be important), the run away housewife Goth, to Michael, the mysterious Irish lad, to Karla the unaging vamp and the thrift store ladies who have other things in mind than "saving the kiddies." The final reveal of Mrs. Claus's secret, which has been building up and hinted at for quite some time, to the return of someone instrumental to Brenda's past. All of this is just extra wonderfulness on top of this horror movie framework. Next please!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brenda and Effie, Dallas, Frankenstein, Get Thee Inside Me Satan, Goth Weekend, Halloween, Hell's Belles, Horror, Paul Magrs, Roddy McDowell, The Legend of Hell House, Whitby

Something Borrowed (Brenda and Effie Book 2) by Paul Magrs
Published by: Headline Publishing
Publication Date: 2007
Format: Paperback, 280 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy
Brenda wants a return to normalcy, while Effie is all for further fun. Brenda just wants to run her Bed and Breakfast and make it the cleanest and friendliest place in all of Whitby. Yet their adventures of the previous year has made Effie realize that there's so much more out there. Sure, growing up with a family of powerful witches, you know about "other" things, but dating Dracula and watching a hell mouth open change your priorities. Without consulting Brenda, Effie has got them a case investigating a string of poison pen letters. Sheila Manchu, who runs the decidedly low rent Hotel Miramar, is the latest victim. She has been shaken by the accusations and hopes that Brenda and Effie can help her.

Their first suspect is Mrs. Claus, with her mysterious ways and otherworldly air. She runs the upscale Christmas Hotel and is hoarding more secrets than perhaps even Brenda. Yet, she seems to be too classy to resort to poison pen letters. Lucky for Brenda and Effie, their now significantly transformed friend Jessie's nephew Robert works at both hotels and is will to help in their investigations when not tending to his womanzee aunt Jessie.

With a beer garden with evil undertones and a rampaging womanzee, sleep deprivation and things that scuttle in the night, surprisingly it's a man from Brenda's past that upsets the precious balance of life in Whitby. Henry Cleavis was a part of Brenda's life at one time, if only she could remember that time. Both of them are long past the time they should have left this earth, Brenda for more easily explainable, if unbelievable reasons... Henry though? What secrets does he hold? One things clear, he still hunts monsters, so where does that leave him and Brenda... Jessie is in danger, that's for sure. Yet if he's in town, there must be something more sinister that drew him here.

At first I was not sure if I would love this second book in Paul Magr's Brenda and Effie series as much as I did the first installment. There was a distinct structure shift. The narrative style changed from little vignettes to a more overall narrative arc. I loved the little "monster of the week" structure of Never the Bride, because it felt more Victorian in construct. Little sweets of stories that take place in Brenda and Effie's lives. Yet, there shouldn't have been a doubt in my mind. While the structure changed, my love for the characters didn't. Paul's style change perfectly fitted the story at hand. Instead of all these little individual tales, we have one tale that every little aspect of the narrative fed into. The story kept building on itself till we finally got the big reveal in Brenda's flashback that locked all the pieces down into place.

Also, learning more about Brenda's past, and her working as a housekeeper and maid back in 1946, makes sense with her continued love of a clean home. Her run in with Dracula way back in the day makes sense as to her prejudice against him when he previously was in Whitby and courting Effie. Secret societies comprised of academics, B Horror movie characters come to life and running amok. Creatures so dangerous that other evil creatures will inexplicably band together for "the greater good" all make this book a wonderfully fun read.

Still, the heart and soul of the book is Brenda. One doesn't really sit down and often think about if someone had an extremely long life, without the supernatural elements, Brenda after all is a creation of man, having been created by Doctor Frankenstein, what would happen to your brain after all these years. Obviously, there's only so much information that a human brain can retain, so amnesia or just plain having problems remembering your own past would be common. Not to mention, there might be a lot that you wish to forget! Brenda has "too many memories to fit inside one body." Memories return to her in flashes. Everything would be easy if she could quickly recall what happened the last time her and Henry where together, because it's obvious with his return, whatever was a danger to them in the past is a danger to them in the present. Yet, that is not how things work. Life is complicated and messy, and never simple, especially if you've had more than your fair share. You can quite literally be haunted by your past... who knows who or what might appear next. I know I can't wait to read about it!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brenda and Effie, Dracula, Frankenstein, Fu Manchu, Mrs. Claus, Never the Bride, Paul Magrs, Something Borrowed, Whitby, Womanzee

Brenda and Effie Forever (Brenda and Effie Book 6) by Paul Magrs
Book Provided by Headline Publishing
Published by: Snowbooks
Publication Date: September 1st, 2012
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Brenda and Effie are taking in the sights on the continent. Of course the sights happen to consist of an odd man obsessed with Opera and a hunchback giving them dire warnings. It wouldn't be a true holiday without something weird coming along and reminding them of their true calling as defenders of Whitby. Even if the hunchback is telling them to never return there. His insistence spurs them homeward where once again they will face their foes and keep the seaside city safe for another day. But there's a dark secret in Effie's past lurking beneath the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth that might destroy everything. There's also a Panda there too, he wouldn't want to be forgotten. Again. This will be their deadliest battle with revelations and danger, and hopefully a nice cup of spicy tea.

I love Paul's books. There's something about reading them that makes you feel like you're home. When I think of a happy place while stuck in the mundanities of real life I think of Brenda's little jewel box of a room at the top of her B and B. But what strikes me most about Paul's books is that he has a looseness to his worldbuilding. Things change, facts get a little distorted, the story of the moment is more pressing then the story that came before. While I am usually a stickler for a rigid adherence to plots and facts, there's something about Brenda and Effie that make this work. Brenda's inability to remember her past in anything other then bits and pieces might be one reason why this works, but I think the truth is far more complex and human.

The truth is that we, as people, aren't the best at remembering things as they happened. We change facts to fit our memories. We remember what is convenient. Of course we also remember in excruciating detail that which we would care to forget. Minds, always playing tricks on us, making what we thought concrete nothing more then daydreams. Brains are fickle, so why can't narratives of books be fickle as well? Stick to the general plot, keep some through lines, but don't worry about what came before or what will come after, just enjoy the ride.

This fluidity to his world has allowed Paul to make a greater universe that his characters inhabit. I love that people drift in and out from one book to the next, and not even within the same series, but within Paul's whole oeuvre. It's like that scene in one of the later Jasper Fforde Thursday Next books where Temperance Brennan wanders out of Kathy Reichs's books and right into his. But while the characters come and go they are never exactly the same. It's almost as if Paul has not only created this huge interconnected world, but also all these parallel interconnected universes where everything connects but it's always just slightly different. Just look to the Danbys... In Brenda and Effie Forever one of my most favorite characters from Paul's universes pays us a visit. Yes, I'm talking about Panda. I adore Panda. There's something so wonderful about this gruff little guy that I think he should just be everywhere.

Yet, despite Panda trying his hardest, the Brontes stole the show. Just the conceit that the Brontes aren't dead but are living in a secret base underneath Haworth? I can't stop laughing at this idea. The idea that they ran an unholy school set by fairy standards (a year and a day), seriously, this is brilliant. Oh, and sacrifices to the Brontes! How can this get better? How about add to that the "Charlotte's Angels" aspect that they were training up girls, including Effie, to be witches on the side of good. AND they were basically training Effie for the time she'd meet Brenda and have to kill her! So not only do we get this amazing humor, we get an answer to why, despite Brenda and Effie being the best of friends, there has always been an underlying tension. It wasn't because of men getting in their way or magic improperly used, it was their destiny to be adversaries, and I adore that instead of following their destinies they have both bucked them. They have decided to be what they want to be NOT what others wanted them to be. Isn't that the best message of all?

For a "final" chapter in their stories despite the amorphous nature of details between books we get several loose ends tied up. Mrs. Claus, Frank, a certain limo... we get an ending. But the truth is I don't want an ending. I am here to scream "MORE" like a petulant little five year old or a drunk Panda at a bar! I could read endless pages and pages of the gang just sitting in Brenda's garret drinking tea. There's rarely books out that revel in good people having a good time. Think of all the negativity being produced on pages and pages of books. I read to escape, to be taken on a ride, and as Brenda and Effie Thelma and Louise it out into the sunset, I want to reiterate how much I've enjoyed the ride.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brenda and Effie, Brenda and Effie Forever, Bronte, Haworth, Jasper Fforde, Kathy Reichs, Mrs. Claus, Panda, Paul Magrs, Thelma and Louise, Thursday Next, Whitby