Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce novels are one of my favorite book series at present. As such, I space out reading them to savor the goodness, so this year I ordered a new one for my birthday, which I quickly devoured. Also, I wanted to read something special for the completion of my half cannonball (Huzzah! Hip Hooray!) But enough about me, on to the book! Bradley has created a precocious and endearing detective in Flavia. Much like I consider Phryne Fisher of the Miss […]
This is book eight; time to stop wanting this series to be something it’s not.
This was back on form after the disappointment of the last one. This series still isn’t perfect for me, but I find it really comforting and enjoyable anyway. I think I just need to let this series be itself and stop wanting it to be what it’s not. The mysteries and plot twists are always going to be predictable. Flavia is always going to pursue random avenues of inquiry that somehow magically lead her to answers. There is probably always going to be a misbalance between the mystery […]
Flavia de Luce – Times they are a changin’
I adore the Flavia de Luce mysteries but kept this one sitting in my Amazon cart for a while. Because I like them so much I tied my reading of it to as a reward for a fitness goal, and I finally made it (self high five). Moving right along, this installment did not disappoint, though it was pretty different than the previous novels. Each previous book had fallen into a “Murder She Wrote” esque pattern, if you are familiar with the Angela Lansbury series […]
Flavia de Luce is at it again. “It” is being awesome, and solving a murder.
“Please don’t condescend to me, Mr. Sowerby, I’m not a child. Well actually – strictly speaking, and in the eyes of the law – I suppose I am a child, but still, I resent being treated like one.” This, in a nutshell, is Flavia de Luce. I adore this series! Though a quote on the book jacket describes the young protagonist as Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys (an apt description) I prefer to think of her as a young Jessica Fletcher, and the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacy […]
My introduction to Flavia de Luce
I have to confess, I’m a casual reader of mysteries at best. I do enjoy the genre, when I find a good mystery that I love. But sometimes I just forget to read them. When I was browsing my library the other day (and in my household, that’s only a day that ends in y), there was a display featuring Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce novels. I thought, “Why not?” So I decided that my Fourth of July vacation week would be a perfect time […]
Not as game-changing as I thought and hoped it would be, but still fun.
First, a caveat: I was expecting a lot more from this book than it gave me, and those expectations were not unreasonable. In fact, they are a direct consequence of the way Mr. Bradley structured not only this book, but the last book in the series. I was expecting a sort of series reboot: Flavia at boarding school with a new cast of supporting characters, learning to be a spy and such. Or at the very least, that there should be real reason why he […]