I picked this book based on a recommendation from NPR’s Book Concierge for 2014., under the category For History Lovers. It’s a very long, very detailed book. I did some research on the author afterwards and learned that she did live the life of a Victorian for a BBC show called Victorian Farm. So when she talks about what it was like to wear period clothes and use a scythe, she had that experience for a year. The book discusses everything from the morning wash […]
If Serial Was Set in Victorian England
“The ordinary was made sinister.” Any Serial obsessed person can tell you that line pretty much sums up the whole podcast. It also accurately sums up the murder of three year old Saville Kent in England in 1860 at Road House. The residents and staff of Road House all had alibis that, if you believed them innocent, appeared innocuous. If you perceived them guilty, their testimony seems suspect. For example, when the governess awoke at 5am and noticed the three year old missing from bed, […]
A Time Traveler’s Homage to Jerome K. Jerome
If you are a fan of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) or PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves novels, this novel is sure to please. Willis is a well known and “decorated” sci-fi author, having won multiple Nebula and Hugo Awards. She discovered JKJ through reading Robert Heinlein and gives him a tip of the hat in an amusing, clever and thoughtful work that combines time travel, mystery, and comedy of manners. It’s 2057 London and Ned Henry, an […]
Wait, This Was a Mystery? The Case of the Overloaded Historical Fiction Novel
I don’t remember where I first saw this mentioned, but I’m pretty sure it was a book blog, and I liked the cover as well as the premise so I thought it would work well to fill my historical mystery fix. While the novel was entertaining enough, the mystery was rather beside the point (it isn’t until page 250 of a 400 page novel that someone even thinks a body looks a bit odd, even though there are journal entries from the killer throughout so […]