Dark mirror by Barry Maitland

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Genre - Mystery


Marion Summers dies a painful death in the London Library. The autopsy reveals that she died of arsenic poisoning, a method of murder more suited to the murky 19th century world of the Pre-Raphaelite painters & poets she was researching. Detectives Brock & Kolla investigate secretive Marion’s background & discover that her research may have been the reason she was killed. Did her discoveries threaten the career of her academic supervisor? Or was it the fellow researcher who had been following her, taking photos on his mobile phone? Or her mysterious lover, who may have been the father of the child she lost just weeks before her death? This is a complex mystery with fascinating literary & historical elements. Brock & Kolla are sympathetic characters & it’s always good to catch up with them again.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

Jane's fame by Claire Harman

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Genre - Non Fiction


This is a witty & informative account of Jane Austen’s reputation since her death in 1817. Although the recent TV & movie adaptations have made Austen one of the most famous authors in the world, her books were out of print for several years after her death. Her reputation was only revived with the publication of the first biography written by her nephew in the 1870s. That was when the cult of dear Aunt Jane, the refined, elegant spinster, began. Austen’s reputation in the 20th century was enhanced by the scholarly editions of the novels published by R W Chapman which was the beginning of the academic critics’ interest in her work. The explosion of popular interest which began with the BBC’s Pride & Prejudice in 1995 has led to hundreds of websites, blogs, movies, sequels & prequels of the novels. Harman explores everything from chick lit & the internet to serious academic works in this exploration of how Jane Austen conquered the world.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

Uncommon arrangements by Katie Roiphe

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Genre - Non Fiction


This is a portrait of seven married couples living in London between the wars. Some of the couples, like Katherine Mansfield & John Middleton Murry, and Vanessa & Clive Bell, are still well known. Others, like Vera Brittain & Gordon Catlin are less so. Roiphe is interested in these unconventional couples who tried to negotiate new ways of living. Mansfield & Murry were often separated because she needed to travel to warm climates for her health. Brittain & Catlin had a semi-detached marriage because Brittain wanted to continue working as a writer & journalist while Catlin was an academic in the US. The Bells were at the heart of the Bloomsbury group & had a famously open marriage with Charleston becoming home to Vanessa’s lover, Duncan Grant, & his lover, Bunny Garnett. An interesting look at life, love & marriage.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

The guernsey literary and potato peel pie society by Mary Ann Shaffer

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This remarkable book is an epistolary novel, a style which went out of fashion around the time of Jane Austen. It consists of letters written in 1946 by Juliet Ashton, a writer living in London, her friends & the members of a literary society on Guernsey. Dawsey Adams has bought a book which Juliet once owned, and has written to the address in the front cover to tell her how much he enjoyed it. The book was the essays of Charles Lamb, and this starts a correspondence which changes Juliet's life. She hears about the formation of the Literary Society during the German occupation of the Channel Islands in WWII, learns what a potato peel pie is, & learns of the harsh conditions of life for the islanders, who were completely cut off from the world & relied on their German captors for news, food, & life itself. I smiled with recognition, laughed & cried. The book is full of the love of books & reading, friendship, & tells a relatively unknown story of WWII. The author worked on the book for many years, and sadly died just before it was published. This is a unique reading experience.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

Daphne by Justine Picardie

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Novelist Daphne Du Maurier is at a crossroads in her life. She’s just turned 50. Her husband, Tommy, is having a nervous breakdown, he’s been having an affair for several years, and their marriage has become distant and remote. Daphne becomes absorbed in writing a new book, a biography of Branwell Bronte, brother of the famous Bronte sisters. Daphne has been obsessed with the Brontes since childhood and wants to rehabilitate Branwell’s reputation. She corresponds with Alex Symington, a librarian who is an expert on Branwell’s manuscripts, but has some secrets of his own. Another strand of the novel is about a young woman researching her PhD on Daphne in present day London. This is the least effective part of the novel. The references to Du Maurier’s most famous novel, Rebecca, are not subtle and don’t really add much to the book. The story of Du Maurier and her life at Menabilly, the house in Cornwall which inspired Manderley in Rebecca, is absorbing. A novel for anyone who loves reading about writers and their obsessions.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters