england

Having enjoyed the first three season's of Showtimes "The Tudors", I was anxious to view this fourth and final season.  In this final season, we meet King Henry VIII's last two wives, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr, who are played beautifully by Tamzin Merchant and Joely Richardson, respectively.  The entire season is comprised of only 10 episodes.  The first five episodes deal with King Henry's affair and marriage to the very young and morally questionable Katherine Howard and his difficulties with his northern subjects, the Scots.  The second five episodes show his subsequent marriage

If you are looking for a fast-paced action read, then this debut novel by Helen Simonson is not for you. However, if you love all things British and are interested in a gentle, entertaining read, then Major Pettigrew's Last Stand  is a novel you should not miss!

Ret. Major Ernest Pettigrew has lived his entire life in the small community of Edgecombe St. Mary, but in recent years many changes have come about putting the Major quite off his routine. First, his wife passed away and now his only sibling, his younger brother, Bertie, has died. The passing of his brother causes the Major to re

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is startlingly good. It is the first book in a series that features a retired Sherlock Holmes and his young, female apprentice. Mary Russell is about fifteen years old when she stumbles upon Holmes in the English countryside. She is feisty, with a whip-quick intelligence, and she naturally falls into the role of protégé. Time and training pass pretty idyllically, until Russell and Holmes are called in to solve a kidnapping. This involves costumes, heroics, and some Holmes-style deductions. There is also a destructive, mastermind villain who knows Holms and predicts

H.G. Wells is best known for his works of science fiction but he also wrote domestic comic novels, one being The History of Mr. Polly. Like his author, Alfred Polly is born into the suburban lower-middle-class of early 20th century England , a class known for its conservatism, restrictiveness, and respectability. As a boy, Alfred attends a National School where he receives a poor education but at age thirteen, he discovers reading and its joys. Adventure stories and comics are his favorites. Then at fourteen, Alfred's father decides that his son needs to start earning a living so he is

This second in Todd’s Ian Rutledge mystery series, finds the Scotland Yard inspector investigating two apparent suicides and one accidental death of three siblings. The family and people of the Cornish village are satisfied with the coroner’s verdicts regarding the deaths and do not welcome Rutledge in their midst. However, a cousin of those who died wants to know more about what happened and why. Rutledge, a still recovering World War I veteran, has the continuous guidance of Hamish, the Scot he unwillingly executed on the battlefield. Rutledge soon becomes suspicious of three previous deaths

A ghost story, this is considered by many to be the best in modern time. Written in 1983, made into a successful stage play in 1989, and soon to be a major motion picture, this atmospheric tale is set in the stormy moors on the coast of England where the fog is so dense one can become lost in an instant. Arthur Kipps, attorney, is sent by his firm to settle the Drablow estate following the death of the last family member, Alice. He decides to stay in her isolated home for a few days to complete his work. This turns out to be a bad decision. At Alice’s funeral he sees an ethereal woman, dressed

Patrick Hamilton is best remembered for his plays Rope and Gaslight which were made into well-known films. However, he also wrote a number of novels and due to a resurgence of interest in his work, they are now being re-issued. Set in London's Earl's Court before the outbreak of World War II, Hangover Square is about a shy, schizophrenic loner named George Harvey Bone who has a profound infatuation with small time actress, Netta Longdon. Netta and her friends are a cruel and dissipated lot who treat George with contempt and sponge off him. George tolerates these cruelties with the hope that

With the Royal wedding just days away, there is still time to learn more about William and Kate. Christopher Andersen’s book, William and Kate: A Royal Love Story, tells not only the story of their friendship and love, but also provides in depth background information about their lives, families and friends. The book is highly readable, enjoyable and well researched. It is accompanied by a nice collection of photographs, sources and chapter notes, and extensive bibliography. It is visible that Christopher Andersen is an experienced journalist and author.  

The book is written in a respectful

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton begins in 1913 London where 4 year old Nell is hiding on a ship deck waiting for the "Authoress" to return and start their journey to Australia.  However, the "Authoress" fails to return and Nell travels to Australia alone with only a small suitcase containing clothes and a book of fairy tales.  Nell is  adopted by the dockmaster and his wife when the ship arrives in Australia and is raised as one of their own.  Nell doesn't learn of her unconventional adoption into the family until she is an adult and it changes the way she sees herself, her family and her

This well-crafted mystery is the first in the Ian Rutledge series. Set in England following the devastation of World War I, Rutledge is a returning veteran trying to pick up the pieces of his sanity and his career with Scotland Yard. A prominent citizen of a Warwickshire village has been found brutally murdered in a field near his home. Rutledge is sent by his nemesis to “try and solve” this high profile crime. Rutledge works methodically and discovers several people with motives; among them is the young ward of the victim, her fiancé, a shell-shocked vet who thinks he’s still in the war, and

This haunting tale transports the reader into the foggy mists of an English country house that hides many layers of secrets. The heroines of the story are Vida Winter, the most popular novelist of her time; and Margaret Lea, the sheltered bookseller Winter has hired to write the story of her life. Margaret is mesmerized by Vida’s telling of a life of gothic strangeness. At the center is the Angelfield family – beautiful and willful Isabelle, her feral twins, a ghost, a governess and a devastating fire. Margaret is struck by an odd parallel between her story and Vida’s and together they face

This second in the Bess Crawford mystery series, finds the World War I nurse once again embroiled in solving a murder. She has returned to England from the trenches with a convoy of severely wounded men. One of her patients is a burned pilot who insists on having his wife’s picture pinned to his tunic at all times. While passing through a busy London train station Bess witnesses an emotional farewell between an officer and a woman who seems familiar. Bess knows beyond a doubt that the woman at the station is the wife of the pilot in her care. When she returns to France Bess sees a newspaper

In early summer, 1917, Bess Crawford returns from the trenches in France with badly wounded patients, among them a severe burn victim who has a picture of his wife pinned to his tunic.  Bess turns her patients over to a clinic in England and boards another train to London for her few hours of leave before returning to her nursing duties in France.  She notices another woman in the crowd at the train station who seems greatly distressed while seeing off an officer who is about to board the train, and realizes it is the face in the photograph worn by the burn victim.  How strange—especially when

As a confirmed Anglophile who enjoys period pieces I find Kate Morton’s mix of modern day and “old England” to be very engaging. Her latest book story begins with Edie’s visit to Milderhurst Castle where the sisters Blythe have lived in seclusion all their long lives. Saffy and Percy take care of the daily living tasks and care for their younger sister, Juniper, who hasn’t been the same since “it” happened in 1941. The work contains aspects of gothic mystery and romance, the struggles of rural England during World War II, and the every-present clash of generations. All of this is woven around

Set in 1941, The Lost Garden is a beautifully written story about a thirty-five-year-old English woman who volunteers for the Women's Land Army, an organization devoted to growing crops for the war effort. Gwen Davis, who works for the Royal Horticultural Society in London, travels to a country estate in Devon to oversee a group of girls who will be planting potatoes. Gwen does not have many close friends and prefers the company of plants to people. But during her stay at Mosel, she forms a close friendship with one of the girls and also falls in love with a Canadian officer who is temporarily

Major Payne gets drawn into a mystery when fellow officer Captain Jesty tells him about his clandestine observation of a beautiful woman switching the capsule contained in her aged husband's pill box which constitutes The Curious Incident at Claridge's. It turns out that Lady Tradescant has many reasons to wish her elderly husband dead. However, Sir Seymour Tradescant does not die of poison; he dies, two days later, in his bath at Mayholme Manor, a retirement home for gentlemen, where he is recovering from an infected toe. Major Payne and his mystery writer wife, Antonia Darcy suspect foul

Spanning the early part of the 20th century, this tale of England chronicles the end of the established view of those “in service” - those who worked “downstairs” for the privileged class. It is the story of Grace, who, as a girl of 14, began work as a servant at Riverton just before the outbreak of World War I. For years her life was inextricably tied to the Hartford family, especially the two daughters, Hannah and Emmeline. Following the war and the deaths of several members, Grace relocates with Hannah and her new husband to the glamorous life of London. The book is full of secrets –

Jeeves and the Mating Season by P. G. Wodehouse
This title is one of many of Wodehouse’s Ask Jeeves titles. It has all the same elements of the other Jeeves titles with mayhem and mix up in the social lives of English gentlemen who have nothing better to do with their time than appease aunts, act in local drama productions, chase after their "one true love," steel pictures, and hide behind couches. This particular title has Bertie and his friends “trading places” in order to protect one of them from the wrath of the aunts. A fun, easy summer read that won’t disappoint the Jeeves lovers!

MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND is Helen Simonson's debut novel.  Most of the story takes place in the picturesque, yet contemporary, English town of Edgecombe St. Mary.  Retired Major Ernest Pettigrew is the epitome of the proper British gentleman--stiff upper lip and all.  The story begins as the Major learns of the sudden death of his younger brother Bertie.  The Major is still coping with the death of his wife a few years earlier.  He is devastated by this news and upset by his inability to cope with his brother’s death.  Mrs. Jasmina Ali arrives at his door unexpectedly to collect money for

Barbara Pym is one of my favorite authors. Even though her novels are primarily set in rural English villages in the mid-twentieth century, they are still relevant today with their social observations and comic phrasing. Pym always wrote about what she knew. She lived in London during her working life, then retired to live with her sister in an Oxfordshire village. Her life there consisted of church, gardening, local history and country walks. A Few Green Leaves, which was completed shortly before her death, is an account of the changes in contemporary village life, as seen through the eyes of

The king's mistress is dead. Who killed her? A jealous queen? A scheming noble hoping to foment civil war? Or was it an unfortunate accident? The stakes are high, and so the King sends his foremost medical investigator to unravel the mystery: an investigator who just happens to be not only a doctor and forensic scientist but also, most unusually for 12th-century England - a woman.

What sets The Serpent's Tale most vividly apart from other historical mysteries is the main character: the Italian-trained female doctor Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar who heals the sick and solves crimes

This fourth installment of the Mistress of the Art of Death series is just as compelling as the previous entries.  King Henry II compels Adelia Aguilar, a female Jewish doctor trained in Salerno, Italy, where the medical arts were revived during the 12th century, to accompany his 10-year old daughter and promised bride to Henry’s cousin, William II of Sicily.  King Henry holds Adelia’s own daughter as “ward” with Eleanor of Aquitane, so she will return to England, but Adelia’s enemies have no intention of letting her survive the trip. The author provides excellent historical perspective and

Published in 1941, N or M? features detecting husband-and-wife team Tommy and Tuppence Beresford who are too old to participate in the war but long to contribute in some meaningful way. Tommy is approached by British Intelligence to go undercover to a seaside boardinghouse, which is suspected of harboring Fifth Columnists, English people who sympathized with Germany and committed traitorous acts on its behalf. Even though Tuppence is supposed to be in the dark about the assignment, she overhears the plan and shows up at the boardinghouse as a paying guest. Agatha Christie wrote this mystery

When the Edgerton Book Ends (book group at Edgerton Neighborhood Library) asked for a classic and a mystery, the selection was clear – a mystery by Agatha Christie. The book group is large in size, so I looked for a Book Club to Go Kit to make sure that I would have enough copies and that is how The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was selected. I was not familiar with this particular Hercule Poirot mystery, but I was sure that Dame Agatha would not let me down.

The mystery is set in a fictional village of King’s Abbott, where the famous detective Hercule Poirot retired to live quietly and garden

Four pairs enter, but only two emerge from this dark, sleekly modern ghost story. English lovers Robert & Elspeth are parted when she dies of cancer, while her twin sister and husband remain incommunicado in America. Elspeth's twin nieces are left her flat on the promise that they live there for a year, living below neighbors Martin & Marijke. But Marijke flees her husband's OCD for Amsterdam while Martin struggles alone to carry out his ever-increasing rituals.

The story really picks up when the apartment becomes the perimeter of Elspeth's afterlife - she regains consciousness as a ghost

Sleeping Murder is a true Agatha Christie classic and one of my favorite mysteries featuring Miss Jane Marple. Even though it was written during WWII, it was the last Miss Marple mystery to be published, appearing in 1976, the year of Agatha Christie’s death.

In Sleeping Murder, young and newlywed Gwenda Reed comes to England from New Zealand to look for a perfect house for her and her husband who will join her at a later date. Before too long she finds an exactly right house called “Hillside” on the edge of a charming seaside resort. However, the house feels a little too much like home and