OVERVIEW: Easter reading
Assignment in Brittany is an early book by Helen MacInnes, set in occupied France during world war two, with one of her very competent heroes, although the challenges he has to face keep mounting. It’s a different setting to her usual Cold War stories, but certainly suspenseful.
Rules by Jane Beaton is the second in the Dorney House series, (I reviewed the first book Class here). It ends with a cliffhanger for the main character, which left me wondering where all the other books in the series the writer claims to have planned in the afterword are. This was published in 2009.
Simone, Fliss and Alice return to school and are joined by Zelda who, along with teenage hormones, shakes things up, making the dormitory rather notorious as far as Maggie Adair, the teacher responsible for them, is concerned. She’s caught up in romantic woes of her own, while the headmistress, Veronica Deveral, could tell the twentysomething teacher and the self-dramatising teens that heartache affects women of all ages. It’s an easy read, sometimes a little too breezy. Although Beaton tried to emphasise the reasons for Maggie’s decisions, her lack of self-awareness about what was making her life so unhappy made me rather frustrated with her, whereas the teenage foibles and developments were easier to swallow, and Simone’s odd relationship with a boy was a delight.
A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley is the latest Flavie de Luce book that I read. Looking back, I see that I haven’t posted anything about the previous books that I read. Flavia’s a rummy girl, isn’t she!? I kept putting this book down, which isn’t like me and I don’t remember finding the other books in the series such a slog. Apart from stumbling across crime scenes and ruining dresses with her intrepid investigating, Flavia has to deal with a lot of family drama - her relationship with her older sisters is particularly twisted - and her dead mother Harriet seems to be much more of a presence, and naturally (or supernaturally), a mysterious one, than in the previous books.
I see that I read much more traditional girls own books over last Easter. Hmm.
This entry was originally posted at http://feather-ghyll.dreamwidth.org/97970.html. Please comment wherever you prefer to.
Rules by Jane Beaton is the second in the Dorney House series, (I reviewed the first book Class here). It ends with a cliffhanger for the main character, which left me wondering where all the other books in the series the writer claims to have planned in the afterword are. This was published in 2009.
Simone, Fliss and Alice return to school and are joined by Zelda who, along with teenage hormones, shakes things up, making the dormitory rather notorious as far as Maggie Adair, the teacher responsible for them, is concerned. She’s caught up in romantic woes of her own, while the headmistress, Veronica Deveral, could tell the twentysomething teacher and the self-dramatising teens that heartache affects women of all ages. It’s an easy read, sometimes a little too breezy. Although Beaton tried to emphasise the reasons for Maggie’s decisions, her lack of self-awareness about what was making her life so unhappy made me rather frustrated with her, whereas the teenage foibles and developments were easier to swallow, and Simone’s odd relationship with a boy was a delight.
A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley is the latest Flavie de Luce book that I read. Looking back, I see that I haven’t posted anything about the previous books that I read. Flavia’s a rummy girl, isn’t she!? I kept putting this book down, which isn’t like me and I don’t remember finding the other books in the series such a slog. Apart from stumbling across crime scenes and ruining dresses with her intrepid investigating, Flavia has to deal with a lot of family drama - her relationship with her older sisters is particularly twisted - and her dead mother Harriet seems to be much more of a presence, and naturally (or supernaturally), a mysterious one, than in the previous books.
I see that I read much more traditional girls own books over last Easter. Hmm.
This entry was originally posted at http://feather-ghyll.dreamwidth.org/97970.html. Please comment wherever you prefer to.