I have fallen in love with Alan Bradley. No...my bishop doesn't need to know. It's a completely one-sided love affair. Bradley gives wings to the notion that life begins at fifty. Or, in his case, 69. That's how old he was when he wrote his first book, the award-winning, "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie." Now his second book has been published and it might be even better. The title is, "The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag." I LOVED THESE BOOKS! They feature a most beguiling heroine; eleven year old Flavia de Luce, a dangerously brilliant child with a special interest in chemistry and poisons. She lives in a crumbling old mansion near Bishop's Lacey, England, in the early 1950s. Her mother died when she was a baby and her father's primary interest is stamps. She also lives with her two evil older sisters, a housekeeper and a devoted man of all work who forgets things. These books are funny, quirky, sophisticated, vastly entertaining and intelligently written. I highly recommend them:
I also recommend another book that I recently finished, "Bone by Bone," by Carol O'Connell. This is her first book since she concluded the "Mallory" series (which I loved), and it is a stand alone. It is a gritty, psychological mystery with an intriguing premise; a fifteen year old disappears into the woods one day and is never seen again. Now, twenty years later, his bones are returning home one by one. His older brother, a former Army CID officer, has returned home very much damaged by his brother's disappearance, determined to find out what happened to him. The theme of this book is how we are shaped by the events of our lives. It is an interesting read (I couldn't put it down), but not particularly a cheery one.
Happy reading!
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