The first two (and the only ones so far published) books in the Diviners series are genre-bending, spooky young adult mysteries with tons of characters in intersecting stories, all set during the roaring twenties and featuring tons of historical flourishes. I am incredibly lazy and struggling to write reviews right now, so I’m leaning on Goodreads for these plot descriptions: The Diviners (3.5 stars) — “Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York […]
1920s Haunted Assylum? Yes, Please!
This is the second novel by Simone St James I’ve listened to, and both were gripping. A little bit of a slow start, but they pick up and just race to the finish. I picked a good one to start my Cannonball Read adventure! We start with Kitty Weekes, a poor London girl on the run, pretending to be a nurse at a psychiatric facility for Shell Shock patients returned to Britain after the first World War. But of course, not everything is as it seems […]
Gotta dance!
I was immediately intrigued by Melina’s review of The Girls at the Kingfisher Club. It looked like the kind of story that hit all my soft spots: Manhattan, fairy tales, Jazz Age, and, perhaps most importantly, ladies who shut down the dance floor. I cannot help myself with the dance stories. I love them all, from the cheesiest Step It Up #39 or whatever to the most discretely dramatic conversation during an Austen Regency dance, I will drink them all up. And I wasn’t disappointed! This is a […]
The Not So Honorable Phryne Fisher
Reviews #12 through 16. Flying Too High (#2), Murder on the Ballarat Train (#3), Death at Victoria Dock (#4), The Green Mill Murder (#5), and Blood and Circuses (#6). The link for this post is for a collection of the first three stories featuring Miss Fisher. The first one (Cocaine Blues) I read last year, so it’s not included in this review. The official blurb for this book is thus: Meet Phryne Fisher, the 1920s’ most elegant and irrepressible sleuth, in her first three adventures […]