Jen's Book Blog

2021 Book #36 – The Mitford Murders: Bright Young Dead

Medium – Book

About the Book – Louisa Cannon is still working as a nursery maid in the Mitford home, three years after the events of the first Mitford Murders book. She is now 23, and is chafing a little at the tedium of life in service, as well as the class inequalities rife in the world that she inhabits. The Mitford children are growing older, and it is Pamela’s turn to leave the nursery and make her way in the world as a ‘deb’. At Pamela’s 18th Birthday party, the unthinkable happens – a member of the party is murdered, apparently by a maid, who is also a friend of Louisa. Louisa is convinced that the maid is innocent of the murder and endeavors to help free her, aided by her friend, Guy Sullivan. Louisa plunges into a world of bright young things, criminal gangs and drugs, but is she out of her depth?

My Rating – 3/5

My Thoughts – This is the second of the Mitford Murders books that I have read – the first having been an audio-book buy. As with the previous book, we join Louisa as she negotiates the fine line between being a friend of the Mitfords and being their servant. She has lost touch with her ‘boyfriend’, Guy Sullivan, and is now acting as a chaperone to the older Mitford girls as they go to parties. There’s a nice bit of social commentary about the growing discontentment of the working classes in this time, as they move towards well-paying jobs rather than working in service. Louisa is not my favourite ‘detective heroine’ in this mould – she’s a bit too headstrong and seems to just go off and do things rather than thinking them through.

The other characterisation is good though, and I especially like Pamela, who has always been one of my favourite Mitford sisters. She was nicknamed ‘Woman’ by her sister, as she was the one who enjoyed country life, animals, farming and domesticity. She was gentle and kind, and the author shows this really well. The other characters, such as Guy Sullivan and the rest of the Mitfords are well painted and feel ‘real’ in a way that Louisa doesn’t. The plot is OK, but it feels like it drags a bit. Overall, I would like to read the next books in the series, but I will wait until my TBR pile is smaller!

2021 Book #35 – Dear Fatty

Medium – Book/Audiobook (I couldn’t get through this book as a paper book, so I bought it as an audiobook instead)

About the Book – Dawn French, the famous actress, comedian and half of the duo ‘French and Saunders’, tells her life story through the writing of a series of letters to important people in her life – her family, friends and even childhood crushes. The letters chart her early life, her schooldays, her early romances, the premature death of her father through suicide, her rise to fame, her marriage to Lenny Henry and adoption of her little girl, Billie, and in the latter letters, her farewell to ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ and her double act with Jennifer Saunders.

My Rating – 3/5

My Thoughts – I started reading this book as a paperback book, but found it really hard to get through. No idea why – I just found the writing style quite difficult. The audiobook was much better and read by Liza Tarbuck, who has a voice very similar to Dawn French’s. In fact, at the beginning of the audio, Dawn appears for a few minutes and explains why she is not narrating herself – mostly because of the rather harrowing nature of some of the things that have happened to her. I listened to Jennifer Saunders’ book earlier in the year, so wanted to also have a go with Dawn’s, as the two of them are some of my favourite female comedians.

The book is tinged with sadness throughout – because of the death of Dawn’s father, but also because a good chunk of it is a love letter to her then-husband Lenny Henry. Unfortunately, they divorced two years after the release of this book, which makes some of the things she says quite sad, really. Dawn comes across as a really lovely person, and there are definite areas of humour in the book, as kooky and surreal as would be expected from half of French and Saunders. However, it was a book that I didn’t love. I enjoyed Jennifer Saunders’ book much more and I can’t quite put my finger on why. All I do know is that I felt unmotivated and a bit depressed when reading/listening to it – and I can’t tell if that’s the Covid blues, or the subject matter.

2021 Book #34 – The Mitford Murders

Medium – Audiobook

About the Book – Louisa Cannon, a young cockney girl, is trying to escape from her nasty, abusive Uncle Stephen. She manages to get a job with the famous Mitfords, an aristocratic family who were infamous during the 1920s. She works as a nursery maid, caring for the family of six daughters and one son, and becomes really good friends with Nancy Mitford, the eldest and closest in age to her. One day, they hear of the murder of Florence Nightingale Shore, a WW1 war nurse, and Nancy becomes obsessed with trying to work out who the murderer is. Louisa teams up with Nancy and her newly-met acquaintance, the railway policeman Guy Sullivan to try and find out the murderer, and to protect the Mitfords from peril.

My Rating – 4/5

My Thoughts – This is one of those archetypal ‘cosy crime’, historical crime novels. Cosy crime is one of my favourite genres, so I was keen to read this book. Alongside this, I have read several books about (and by) the Mitfords, including the novels by Nancy Mitford, Jessica Mitford’s memoir, an overall biography of the six sisters and a book of their letters to each other. They were all super-interesting women, so it was really lovely to see them (well Nancy and Pamela mainly in this first book) as young teenagers. It looks like the author is planning six books, each focusing on a different sister, and I am already reading book 2, which focuses on one of my favourite of the Mitford girls, Pamela (my other favourite is Debo). The plot of this book was good, the characters believable, and I liked the character of Louisa, who acts as our narrator.

I only have one major problem with this book, which is why it is rated at a 4/5 rather than a 5/5. Without wanting to give too much away, the murder of Florence Nightingale Shore was a real-life event, with the murderer never being found and disappearing off into oblivion. The murderer in this book is found, and it is a person who actually existed in real life. This person was never suspected of the real Florence’s murder, and as far as can be found out, lived a long, peaceful retirement. The fact that this person was written as the murderer in this book looks like speaking ill of the dead at the very best. It feels mean-spirited and I don’t think there is enough distance in terms of time for the person written as the murderer to still have relatives living. It left an unpleasant taste in my mouth, and ruined the book slightly for me at the end (the information only appears in the author’s note).

2021 Book #33 – Mrs Hudson and the Lazarus Testament

Medium – Book

About the Book – Mrs Hudson, the redoubtable housekeeper of Sherlock Holmes, and Flotsam, the maid and her investigative assistant, return in the third of these ‘Holmes and Hudson Mysteries’. The book follows Flottie as she works as a maid at 221B Baker Street in the 1880/1890s (we assume!) One day, as Flottie arrives home from some errands, she is witness to a terrible carriage accident and hears a man’s dying words – a message to Sherlock Holmes. The tragedy puts into motion a series of events involving a missing Viscount, an ancient manuscript and a deserted town where the dead may be coming back to life. Holmes and Watson set out to solve the case, accompanied by Mrs Hudson and Flottie, and soon they are catapulted into the usual intrigue and mystery.

My Rating – 3/5

My Thoughts – Last year, when I was doing the Popsugar reading challenge, I read the first in the series of Mrs Hudson books and really enjoyed it. This one, quite frankly, was a bit ‘meh’. Mrs Hudson was a cleverly written and drawn character, as is Flottie, who is just fantastic and who I would very much like to adopt. Holmes and Watson are close enough to the canon characters to be believable to someone who is a bit of a Holmesian and unlike the previous book, there wasn’t the large number of inaccuracies with the timelines etc. The characters were generally well drawn and had their own distinct voices.

The plot though, was what let this book down, and I just found that it dragged a bit. The villains were a bit obvious, as was the twist at the end of the story. There were a couple of characters who just seemed a bit superfluous, including one who seemed only to appear a couple of times to add drama and save Flottie, give a clue, and then disappear into the ether. The book did feel as if it could have ended 50 pages earlier, and I kind of wish that it had, to be honest. I’m curious to see what number 2 and number 4 books are like in this series, but can’t say that I will be beating the door down of the library to get them!

2021 Book #32 – Mary Magdalene Never Wore Blue Eyeshadow

Medium – Book

About the Book – Amanda Hope Haley discusses some of the most held pre-conceptions about stories and elements in the Bible and how they have come about. She deals firstly with the tradition that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute (she wasn’t – classic misogynist Pope move), then works through Creation and Evolution, the authors of the Books of the Bible, and how to tell the difference between a popular doctrine and what is actually in the Bible. She discusses in depth how the Bible was written, translated and transmitted, and how misconceptions may have come about due to historical readings and translating of the Biblical Texts.

My Rating – 4/5

My Thoughts – This was a book I heard promoted on one of my favourite Podcasts, ‘The Bible Binge’, which retells Biblical stories as if they were a book, film or TV show. It’s an excellent show and I have generally had quite good luck with books when I’ve bought ones recommended on the Podcast. This book was really interesting and was definitely one of the best, and most readable, Christian books that I have read in a while. Haley’s narrative style was excellent – very witty and informative, and I liked the way that she started each chapter with an illustration from her own life.

I particularly enjoyed (and recognised) her reflections on the two styles of sermon-making – both of which I have observed. The first was ‘proof-texting’ – the process of taking one Bible verse or section from the Bible and using it to make a preacher’s point. This is often used by those (generally male) preachers trying to stop women preaching in their church – or, as another example, is often seen in prosperity gospel style churches. The second was ‘exegesis’, the process of looking at a topic or theme using the whole of the Bible and all of the context, which is less concerned with getting the Bible to say what the sermon-maker wants it to say. I found this part of the book particularly powerful, and found myself this Sunday listening to our Church’s sermon with new ears. Definitely a recommended book, and one I will be passing around my family!

2021 Book #31 – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (MinaLima Edition)

Medium – Book

About the Book – In this beautifully designed and illustrated edition of the first Harry Potter novel, we meet Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry lives with his horrible relatives, the Dursleys, and has done since his parents were killed ‘in a car crash’. When he turns eleven, Harry starts getting mysterious letters, which are followed up by a visit from the half-giant Hagrid. He tells Harry that he is a wizard, and this starts Harry’s journey to the Wizarding school, Hogwarts. Once Harry arrives, he meets new friends, learns magic, and finds that the dark wizard who was destroyed when he tried to kill Harry may not be so dead after all.

My Rating – 5/5

My Thoughts – Unsurprisingly, this was the Harry Potter book I read first, and the one that got me into reading the whole series of books. It is a book which has always had a special place in my heart, which is why I have a few versions of it – the original one from when I was 11 (really had to do some maths there!), the illustrated version, the Ravenclaw special edition (because of course I would be a Ravenclaw…) and this edition. MinaLima are the design team behind the ‘look’ of the Harry Potter movies – the graphic design of all the items that appear in the shops, the posters, the newspapers etc. They have a museum in London that I am definitely making a visit to when the world re-opens, and have created this book, alongside other classic literature books such as ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’.

What MinaLima have done is take the text from the original book and add illustrations (drawn in a completely different way to the Jim Kay books), as well as ‘pop up’ interactive paper elements – kind of like a pop-up book for little children. So we get a fold out Hogwarts letter, a pop-up chessboard and an unravelling turban, among other things. It is beautifully done, and is a lovely way of adding an interactive element to a well-loved story. The whole series is one I can read again and again, and I really appreciated how the interactive elements and clever design and illustrations made me enjoy the book in a whole new way. Definitely recommended for Potterheads!

2021 Book #30 – The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow

Medium – Audiobook

About the Book – Sophie Taylor is a young, orphaned, well-to-do girl, who has recently lost her father and has been left in poverty. In desperation, she gets herself a job at the newly established Sinclair’s Department Store – which is a little bit like Harrods. She is looked down upon by the other girls but soon makes friends with Billy, one of the porters, and Lilian Rose, a model at the store who wants to be an actress. One evening, Sophie is tied up in a mystery – an attack on a young employee of the store and the theft of a clockwork sparrow, one of the most expensive curiosities in the collection of the store’s founder. Sophie, Lil and Billy decide that they are going to solve the mystery.

My Rating – 2/5

My thoughts – To be honest, I can’t say I finished this book. The story didn’t grab me, but I did get over half-way, which is my cut-off point for stopping a book (if I haven’t lost interest after the first few pages). I enjoyed the premise of the story, but just found it a little slow-moving for me. That isn’t necessarily because it is a children’s book – a number of the books on my TBR pile and covered in this blog are ‘middle school’ aged books. I think I just found the story very similar to other stories of the same genre, so it didn’t necessarily encourage me to keep reading. I did like the character of Sophie – I thought she was a lovely addition to the narrative, and she was probably my favourite part of the story.

I think another thing which put me off from the book was the narrator of the audiobook – it really does make such a difference. This lady is, I am sure, a wonderful reader, but her extremely posh, clipped accents for both Sophie and Lil really put me off. The ‘voices’ she used for both are voices I have heard for quite comical characters in the past (such as Madeleine Bassett in the PG Wodehouse ‘Jeeves’ stories), so they sounded silly, rather than the strong, independent women that I think the author wanted to include. I am sure the story was better than the audiobook – I just couldn’t bring myself to get past the narrator. Maybe I will try it sometime in the future, and actually read the paper book!

2021 Book #29 – Toksvig’s Almanac 2021

Medium – Book

About the Book – Sandi Toksvig, the British/Danish presenter and comedian (and ex-Chancellor of the University where I did my Masters, so I’ve met her!), presents an almanac of the year, covering important and interesting facts about women – one for each day of the year. For each month, there is a run down of how the month got its name, longer articles for specific points in the year and how they relate to women’s history (i.e. black history month, Christmas), and a shorter bio for each day of the year with an important female birth, death or event. Toksvig’s aim is to highlight the history of women, which so often is overshadowed by that of men.

My Rating – 4/5

My Thoughts – I have to admit to a girl crush on Sandi Toksvig. I have now read (or listened) to all the books she has written for adults, and I always find her interesting, funny and engaging. Her autobiography (Between the Stops: The View of my Life from the top of the Number 12 Bus) is fabulous, and is a book I could read time and time again. This book was born from Tokvig’s Youtube videos and podcasts which were created during the initial UK lockdown. They are definitely recommended! In the videos, she highlights the stories of a number of the women found in this book – sometimes in more detail, so that we can discover them further.

I found this book really interesting, but I must admit to it being a book I picked up and put down quite frequently, often being distracted by other things. I found parts of it (the longer monthly discussions of specific dates) more difficult to read and skimmed through those. I think it says something about me (and my current ADD tendencies, which seem to be going through the usual cycle of being worse at the moment), that I found the short, concise descriptions of the births and deaths of the important women associated with each day in the year the most interesting part of the book. I like the fact that for my female (and male) friends, I could write a short extract from this book out for their birthdays – knowing my friends, they would enjoy it!

2021 Book #28 – Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What we Leave Behind

Medium – Book

About the Book – Professor Dame Sue Black is a forensic anthropologist, based at the University of Lancaster, who has spent her working life as a forensic anthropologist working in universities and alongside governments and police forces across the UK and the world. In this book, she talks through the skeleton, from the top of the head to the tips of the toes, discussing the science behind the bones as well as case studies from the past, and ones that she has experienced in her working life. She explains how the actions of our lives, from sports to weight to drugs to hobbies, impact on our skeletons, and how the forensic anthropologist might use their skills to identify Jane or John Does, or find cause of death.

My Rating – 3.5/5

My Thoughts – Ever since I watched the TV series ‘Bones’ when I was at University, I have always been fascinated by the idea of what a forensic anthropologist does. That, twinned with my love of crime and medical biographies, made this book a good choice for me. Sue Black is a great author – she is funny and heartfelt, and I enjoyed her little comical asides and her obvious love for her job. Her stories were sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes humorous, and she shared experiences from her own life, one of which made me cry (I’ll leave you to read it and find out which one). I get the feeling that Sue Black would be a brilliant professor, and I am definitely going to be on the lookout for her previous book ‘Whatever Remains’.

That being said, I did find the ‘science-y’ bits a bit difficult to get through, which perhaps says that I am not destined for a late-life career change to forensic anthropology. Sue Black made it as readable as possible, but as someone who is more of a history/narrative person, I did find myself scanning through the technical parts to the case studies. But that is very much me. I’m sure my husband (a physicist) and my friends (a doctor and a psychology graduate) would probably have more luck than me!

2021 Book #27 – The Assassin’s Blade

Medium – Audiobook

About the Book – From the universe of the ‘Throne of Glass’ comes the prequel to the series, ‘The Assassin’s Blade’. It follows our main character, Celaena Sardothien, in five mini-stories, charting her beginnings as Aderlan’s assassin, to her fall – leading to the first book of the series, ‘The Throne of Glass’. The books also introduce the first man she fell in love with, her childhood rival Sam, as well as other well known characters from the series, such as Lysandra, Ireen, Arobynn, and a short cameo from the Prince and Captain Chaol. After the events of the first novella, ‘The Assassin and the Pirate Lord’, we see Celaena travel across the continent, doing bad things as well as good (well, she is an assassin, after all), and trying to forget her past and find a better future for herself.

My Rating – 4/5

My Thoughts – I really enjoyed the Throne of Glass series, getting through the whole set of books on my journeys to and from work before the lockdown (those heady days in 2019, when who knew what was coming!). Sarah J. Maas’s storylines and plots are both interesting and exciting, and generally not too contrived. There are some YA fantasy tropes – a virginal but murderous female lead, the honourable male lead, a general cast of characters ranging from merely pretty to drop dead gorgeous (seriously, where are all the normal looking characters?) – but they don’t detract too much from the story. I was intrigued to listen to the prequel of the series, but felt that I needed to be in the mood to do it. Which now, at the (hopefully) tail end of the third lockdown, I now am!

The character of Celaena Sardothien is one for whom I have a bit of a love/hate relationship. She’s arrogant and vain, and obviously does a profession which is questionable to say the least. Later in the series, (SPOILERS!) Celaena rediscovers her roots and becomes Aelin Galathynius, the princess of Terrassen, and at that point, I feel that she becomes a more likeable, sympathetic character. The character of Sam is fantastic, so much better than Chaol, who becomes Celaena’s love interest later in the set of stories. He is kind, gentle (for an assassin!) and respects Celaena’s ability to best him in a fight. Part of me does wish that he had stuck around into the main books, as I think he is a much more developed and interesting male lead than some that Celaena is matched with (with the exception of her final partner!) The novella I most enjoyed was the one set in the Red Desert – no Sam, but a much more gracious, endearing Celaena, and the inclusion of Ansel, who is another favourite.

So why only a 4 star? As discussed above, there’s the slightly less sympathetic Celaena, and I felt these novellas didn’t match up to the storytelling in the main book. I felt as well that these novellas were significantly more ‘trope-y’ than the actual novels – it felt like Celaena was very similar to most other fantasy heroines I’ve read in the past. But generally a great listen – especially because of the narrator (Elizabeth Evans, who is excellent).