A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Dianne Freeman

 

It’s confession time. I first got my hands on a copy of this book back in the summer of 2020, ahead of its publication, and I did read it, but I never reviewed it. It wasn’t because it was bad. Looking back at the clutch of outstanding books I intended to review, I see they all date back to that point in 2020 when lockdown restrictions were lifted. From spending all day reading I was able to go out and socialise, go shopping, do things. And so I forgot the books. 

Belatedly, I’m going through them again and rereading them so I can review them with them fresh in my mind. This matters, because I’d forgotten, until I came back to this book, quite how much I enjoyed it. It’s a well-worm genre, the Victorian upper-class detective, but it’s none the worse for that. In this case out heroine Frances , the widowed Countess of Harleigh, is navigating the hasty marriage of her sister, Lily, when a series of accidents appear to get ever closer to Lily’s groom-to-be. Meanwhile Frances’ likeable and capable beau, George, is on the trail of villains and lends a helping hand. 

I’ve read a lot in this genre and I think this book benefits hugely from taking itself seriously. There’s sometimes a tendency for authors to mock the period and the class from which they have chosen their sleuths and victims, but in this case I felt all of the characters were properly fleshed out and therefore both believable and enjoyable. There were plenty of twists and turns and, while I remembered one or two from my previous reading, I remained pleasantly surprised by the way the plot turned, without resorting to silliness. All in all I felt thoroughly engaged and definitely enjoyed reading it for a second time. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Kensington Books for a copy of this novel in return for an honest review. 

Review: Storm Sister by Lucinda Riley

The Storm Sister, second in the Seven Sisters series (try saying that after a few drinks!) follows the same pattern as the first and I imagine the others, too. After the death of their billionaire father his adoptive daughters are given clues to their heritage and learn about their back stories. 

The series has been really well-received: The Storm Sister, which is the story of Allie, the second sister, has over 37,000 reviews and averages 4.6* on Amazon so it's clearly struck a rich vein of readers. I liked the first one, The Seven Sisters, very much indeed and already have book three lined up …but I find myself taking a slightly heretical view. 

I love Lucinda Riley. Her stories are terrific. They typically feature young women from a variety of backgrounds but all supremely talented in at least one way; they encompass billionaire lifestyles, glamorous settings, romance, danger, tragedy… They have it all. The writing is page turning. The characters are real. You can escape so easily into a different world and resurface from it only when you’re ready. They are perfect holiday reads.

But they’re long books, 700 pages or so, and each tells two complete but separate stories. The Seven Sisters was so chunky it hurt my ageing wrists to hold it so I borrowed the second from the library on audiobook, and this led me to a shocking revelation. Because the book is so long, and because the loan is time-limited, there was no way I was going to get through 20 hours or more and finish it. So I started skipping. I effectively cut out the story of Allie’s great-grandparents and discovered that…the book worked as well, if not better, with a single story than with two. 

The thing is, most of my interest in the first two books was in the present. It’s in the sisters’ relationships and their adventures as they try to unpick their own stories, the love and loss along the way. In The Storm Sister, which sees Allie rebuild her life after a tragedy that had me in tears even though I could sense it coming, I felt I didn’t need the full detail of the second story to make the first complete. 

It’s actually a bit of a bargain, two books in one, and I feel a little bad for having skipped so much, but the truth is I didn’t feel I missed much by not reading/listening to the whole thing. I also have a slight concern that by the time we get to sister number six, the formula might have run its course. 

I'm going to read the next in the series (The Shadow Sister) but, as I discovered it's even longer than this one, maybe I'll wait until I have very long period of dead time to occupy...

Book Review: Abraxus Elijah Honey by Ella Ruby Self

After almost five years I am reviving my book blog, though I don't know how long I shall keep it up. For the past two years I've posted about every book I've read on X, but the self-imposed restriction of keeping my reviews to a single post has proved frustrating, so it's time to expand. Some books, of course, are very much love-and-leave (or-loathe-and-leave) but others require more thought, so here I am once more. 

And so to my first book of 2025, Abraxus Elijah Honey by Ella Ruby Self, published by Northodox Press. (Disclaimer: I am also published by Northodox.) It's fantasy, which isn't a genre I'm particularly consumed by, though I will dip my toe in if something particularly appeals and this, with its historical setting in nineteenth century west Wales and its themes of mythology and the sea, definitely caught my fancy. 

I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't say I loved it, as it felt very long and very dense, but I was absorbed by the characters and the setting. There's a huge and complex tapestry of folklore underlying it, some of which I recognise and some of which I looked up (both the names of Abraxus and his boat are derived from cultures far from Celtic lands). There will be others, I am sure, that have passed me by. This reimagining of mythology is something I love in fiction and I was reminded, among others, both of Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings and of Will from Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series -- a compliment, should you doubt. 

The characters were real and warm: I loved the relationships between the very different twins, Eli and Tias, and the way in which the stranger Abraxus and the innkeeper Smythe came to care for them with their father dead and their mother largely absent. I loved the setting and the mystery. 

Perhaps I have one or two niggles. I thought some of the more abstract chapters were hard to follow and, on a more practical note, I think I identified a plot hole when a character writes and receives letters despite being in a village that is completely cut off for months. (How did that happen? Carrier pigeons? It's never explained.)

Overall, however, I enjoyed it. The many joys of this book far outweighed its very minor flaws and I reached the end with an enormous sense of satisfaction at the ending, and a hope that perhaps there might be more to come from these characters and this author. 

Abraxus Elijah Honey is available as paperback and ebook, direct from Northodox Press or from Amazon.