Book Report

I decided to re-read some of Rhys Bowen's Royal Spyness mysteries and found a recent addition that I never read! The Last Mrs. Summers!

Georgie (Lady Georgiana etc, etc, Rannoch, of late 34th(?) in succession for the throne until she married Mr. O'Mara in a Catholic ceremony and gave up her place in line) and Darcy have been married for three whole months when he is "called away". He is some sort of undercover agent in the service of the Crown. Bored and lonely, Georgie goes to London and finds that no one is available to cheer her up. Even her old Granddad -(not a royal AT ALL) - has a volunteer job.

She arrives home at Eynsleigh, the estate that one of her step-fathers has "given" to Georgie and Darcy, to find Belinda, her best friend arriving. Belinda has been left a cottage in Cornwall so off the girls go to check out the property.

Note: Bowen opens the book with a tribute to DuMaurier's classic suspense novel, Rebecca. If you ever read that book or watched the movie you will appreciate the setting.

Anyway, the cottage is a wreck and they go into town to find a hotel. Belinda meets a childhood friend (she spent her summers in Cornwall) who invites them home to a large and possibly haunted estate. A gruesome murder takes place. The ladies are suspects. There is some sort of tomfoolery at a nearby stately home. Smugglers? Ghosts? 

And was that Irishman really Darcy? 

Bowen knows her audience so well!

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I have read Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity and have found a few that I know I never read. Ngaio Marsh and her lovely Inspector Alleyn has gotten me through some hot days. And Patricia Wentworth's endlessly patient and serene Miss Silvers continues to unravel startling mysteries. 

But what about the Kids' Books?

Most recently - The Lion of Mars by Jennifer L. Holm finds Bell living in the American station on Mars. The station has cut itself off from the other stations on Mars for the past 10 years. Bell takes us through his routine with the other young people and their mentors. When a stow away mouse brings a virus that attacks only the adults in the station, the children and teens have to get help. Help from earth can take 8 months! Bell and his former best friend head out in the train tunnel and they discover that the other stations are filled with lively, generous people. Why did the Americans cut themselves off?  I will not tell you who or what the LION is in this book.  Read it.

Max and the Midknights: The Battle of the Bodkins by Lincoln Peirce is a quick, heavily illustrated fantasy by the author of all the Big Nate books. Max and her fellow knights in training must battle an outbreak of Bodkins - evil spirits that look exactly like people already in the kingdom. The real people are imprisoned while their evil twins destroy the kingdom. It's a romp through a Middle Ages-ish landscape.

Stefan Bachman returns with another delightful fantasy, Cinders & Sparrows.  Zita Brydgeborn receives a letter - delivered by a scarecrow - telling her she has inherited a castle, Blackbird Castle the ancestral home of a long line of powerful witches. Zita is the last.  And, of course, she must quickly learn all she can to fight the forces of Evil. It is much richer than this formula promises. Zita and the reader struggle to see who is a friend and who is a foe.  Spritely written, this book is classic fantasy.

Keep cool and READ ON!

Full of Beans

Jennifer L. Holm returns to Key West during the Depression - the Great One, not the recent turn of the 21st century bank blow-up - just clarifying  - in Full of Beans.

Grown-ups lie.  There you have it.  It's a fact and Beans can give you example after example of how this works.  But as Beans tries to survive a sweltering summer in down and out Key West, he discovers that kids can be deceitful, too.  Even stand-up kids like himself.

Holm did her homework in verifying the New Deal program that turned a worn-out Florida village into a tourist attraction.  Beans calls the government agent a Crazy Man, and lampoons his "underwear" - bermuda shorts - in between marble tournaments and running errands for a shady businessman.  Everyone in town thinks the house paint they are given is ridiculous.

When Bean's plans put his friends in danger, he has to make amends.  He rallies his band of kids to help save Key West.  In an unrelated subplot, Holm reintroduces the miracle diaper rash remedy - somewhat modified - that she mentioned in Turtle in Paradise.

Oh and there's an adorable dog.  Can't lose with a dog in the book.