Murder in Midwinter by Fleur Hitchcock

The bus stops for the millionth time and I look down at my phone for the millionth time. 

A little envelope appears in the corner of the screen., I click on it. 

It's from my sister, Zahra.

What you gonna wear to the party? 

Published by Nosy Crow in October 2016

Pages - 256

Summary

Sat on the top of a bus days before Christmas, Maya sees a couple arguing violently in the middle of a crowded Regent Street. They see her watching, she looks away, and the woman disappears. Maya goes to the police, who shrug and send her away. Then a body turns up… Now convinced she is a vital witness to a crime, the police send Maya into hiding in rural Wales. She resolves to get to the bottom of the mystery. Then the snow comes and no one can get out. But what if someone can still get in?

****

This is a perfect book for the season. Bring on the snow! Fleur Hitchcock has made me desperate for it, with this wintery, murder mystery. 

The book is aimed at the Middle Grade market, but it had an older feel to it. I would suggest that it would easily suit the younger YA crowd as well as Middle Grade. 

Maya is a fantastic main character. I think she is from mixed heritage, but it isn't really mentioned and I'm only guessing because of the names of the family members and the unusual white streak in her hair. She is courageous and bold, with a fantastic hobby. Maya likes to assemble and disassemble motor bikes. What an excellent role model she is.  She has a strong bond with her sister and will do anything to protect her. 

 I was thrown straight into the story from the first chapter and found myself quickly turning the page to find out what happened next. The plot takes us from the bustling streets  of London to the silent and lonely valleys of Wales. Maya doesn't really feel any safer there and can't wait to get back home. It doesn't help that her cousin, Ollie is so horrible to her. 

The plot keeps us on our toes through out the book and leaves you with an unexpected ending. Some of the final scenes had me gripping the edge of the seat. Especially all the scenes involving the horses. Any animal scene is guaranteed to break my heart. 

For those who love a fast paced, thrillingly tense Middle Grade read, this is the book for you. Definitely one for the Christmas stocking. 

Setting the Scene with Fleur Hitchcock

I'm so pleased to welcome Middle Grade author, Fleur Hitchcock onto the blog today, to tell us all about the settings in her latest book, Murder in Midwinter, which was recently published by Nosy Crow. Keep a look out for a review of the book, coming very soon!

Setting the scene...

At the heart of Murder in Midwinter, is Maya, a London girl, a girl who knows and walks the streets just south of the river, around the Southbank and Borough and just to the east of Waterloo. It’s an area I know well, my niece, Ruby, and her family live there - here’s a lino cut Ruby did of the block of Corporation of London flats that they live in. 

I didn’t actually use these flats, not completely, because I wanted Maya’s family to live over the plumbing supplies shop that they run. That was an amalgamation of a decorator’s shop near Southwark street and Pimlico Plumbers who have a huge sign on the railway line as you approach Waterloo station. 

But what I really used was the Thames, at night in the winter. It’s stunning, all purple and green lights, monumental architecture and silhouettes and reflections - and at one point Maya and her sister Zahra are sitting watching the streams of tourists passing the Globe theatre and Zahra says: “God. London’s beautiful.” She’s speaking for me at that point, because I love to sit on those Thames side benches in the twilight just looking. 

And when Maya needs to flee, I had to find somewhere that was the absolute opposite. Somewhere with no lights, no architecture, nothing. 

A snowy mountain in Wales. 

I have to confess that although I’ve lived in Wales, I’ve never lived in the mountains, I’ve only visited them in the winter, not in the snow, but I have lived in the countryside most of my life and a couple of years back we had some very severe winters, so I used what I remembered of those.

And finally there were the horses. I was a horse kid, but never a very able horse kid, but I do remember one particular pony, black, mean, standing in the snow, biting my best friend on the bum. I used that pony. 100%.

Is that a setting?

I think so. 

Sadly, I have no photos of him. I never thought I’d need it. 

Summary

Sat on the top of a bus days before Christmas, Maya sees a couple arguing violently in the middle of a crowded Regent Street. They see her watching, she looks away, and the woman disappears. Maya goes to the police, who shrug and send her away. Then a body turns up… Now convinced she is a vital witness to a crime, the police send Maya into hiding in rural Wales. She resolves to get to the bottom of the mystery. Then the snow comes and no one can get out. But what if someone can still get in?

Published by Nosy Crow in October 2017

To find out more about Fleur Hitchcock:

Twitter / Website

London Belongs To Us by Sarra Manning

LONDON

A city of eight million people. Eight million lives. Eight million stories. 

This is just one of them.

Published by Hot Key Books in June 2016

Pages - 272

Summary

Seventeen-year-old Sunny's always been a little bit of a pushover. But when she's sent a picture of her boyfriend kissing another girl, she knows she's got to act. What follows is a mad, twelve-hour dash around London - starting at 8pm in Crystal Palace (so far away from civilisation you can't even get the Tube there) then sweeping through Camden, Shoreditch, Soho, Kensington, Notting Hill . . . and ending up at 8am in Alexandra Palace.

Along the way Sunny meets a whole host of characters she never dreamed she'd have anything in common with - least of all the devilishly handsome (and somewhat vain) French 'twins' (they're really cousins) Jean Luc and Vic. But as this love-letter to London shows, a city is only a sum of its parts, and really it's the people living there who make up its life and soul. And, as Sunny discovers, everyone - from friends, apparent-enemies, famous bands and even rickshaw drivers - is willing to help a girl on a mission to get her romantic retribution.

*****

This is actually my first Sara Manning book and I want to give myself a damn good talking to about not reading any of her books before, because this book is BRILLIANT!

Where do I start as there is so much to love about this book? 

I adored the concept behind it. A twelve hour journey around London stopping at all the beautiful places in the city. It made me proud to be British. In my head I was singing this and waving my flag!

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At the beginning of each chapter we get a guide to each town with all the bits of gossips you wouldn't get from a tourist guide. They were such a wonderful accompaniment to the story itself. 

I loved Sunny! It was great to see a  mixed race character in the lead & how she was treated in different settings. I was nodding my head at the scene where she was the only person of colour in the room, as I've been in that situation with a mixed race friend and felt how uncomfortable it was for them. It was great to see how her attitude to her boyfriend and her life itself change as the story progressed. 

Vic and Jean-Luc were entertaining. They had such an enigma about them to begin with that it was brilliant to see they were just two squabbling cousins behind it.

The viral YouTube scene was just fabulous and so fitting for today's young adult market. Nearly every teen dreams of being in  a viral video and being discovered.   

This book is fun, light and summery, giving us a whirlwind tour of London at it's best. 

The Disgrace of Kitty Grey by Mary Hooper

Suddenly nervous about why the two young ladies had asked to meet me in secret, I hurried through the kitchen, went up the servants’ stairs and stood waiting in the hallway between the drawing room and the front parlour, just as Miss Sophia and Miss Alice had requested.

Pages - 288

Published by Bloomsbury in May 2013

Book Summary

Kitty is living a happy, carefree life as a dairymaid in the countryside. The grand family she is employed by looks after her well, and she loves her trade, caring for the gentle cows and working in the cool, calm dairy. And then, of course, there is Will, the river man who she thinks is very fond of her, and indeed she is of him. Surely he will ask her to marry him soon? Then one day disaster strikes: Will disappears. Kitty is first worried and then furious. She fears that Will has only been leading her on all this time, and has now gone to London to make his fortune, forgetting about her completely. So when Kitty is asked to go to London to pick up a copy of Pride and Prejudice, the latest novel by the very fashionable Jane Austen, Kitty leaps at the chance to track down Will. But Kitty has no idea how vast London is, and how careful she must be. It is barely a moment before eagle-eyed pickpockets have spotted the country-born-and-bred Kitty and relieved her of her money and belongings. Dauntingly fast, she has lost her only means of returning home and must face the terrifying prospect of stealing in order to survive - and of being named a thief ...

******

Mary Hooper is one of those authors who can pick you up and transport you anywhere in history. Every book she writes is so thoroughly researched, you feel like the author has magical powers allowing her to visit the periods in history she writes so realistically about.

During this novel, we are transported back to the time of Napoleon and find ourselves in a beautiful, idyllic country setting. Life isn’t easy, but Kitty loves her job and works hard to do it well; she takes great pride in the dairy. With the love of Will, the ferryman, she is content and looks forward to spending the future with him. It’s only when he disappears that Kitty’s life starts to unravel. In her desperation to find him, she enters London blindly only to discover her future doesn’t look too bright any more.

This book is full of fascinating contrasts. In the beginning, you compare Kitty’s life to the wealthy family she works for. The differences are obvious, and yet surprisingly, Kitty’s life seems more appealing. At least she can choose who she would like to marry unlike the young ladies of the house who are bound by their parent’s decisions. As the book progresses you begin to contrast life in the country with life in London. London comes across as grey and depressing, as Kitty struggles to survive. As each day passes, her situation just gets worse until she ends up in Newgate Prison, the lowest she can go.

I loved the descriptions in this book.From country life to London life, you get an excellent impression of both.  Newgate Prison has always intrigued me. The conditions they lived under were appalling; the lack of places to sleep, no opportunities for cleanliness and very little food, yet if you had money you could pay to make your conditions better. This shows clearly the unfairness of society during this period in history. People were jailed for the least little thing. If someone burnt a chair these days,  I doubt an eyebrow would be lifted, yet in those days you were thrown in jail, facing the possibility of being whipped or put in the stocks.

If I’m honest, I would’ve liked a different ending. I wanted to see what would happen if Kitty continued on the route she was originally destined to take. How her life would have turned out if the events of the final pages had not occurred. On reviewing the book now, I wonder if the author might take that idea and use it for a future book and we might see what happens when  someone actually takes the journey that Kitty nearly embarked on.

Naming Monsters by Hannah Eaton

I assure you I am not showing off when I say I am probably the country’s pre-eminent teenage cryptozoologist. Actually, that isn’t the right word. I think a cryptozoologist might be one of those people who stand around in khaki waistcoats getting aroused about yetis.

I must be a monsterologist, then. That’s no less embarrassing, but it can’t be helped. I have known now for a year or so - a year last April, to be exact: monsters are all around us.

Published in Junes 2013 by Myriad Editions

Pages - 170 . Graphic Novel.

Goodreads Summary

The year is 1993, as we join Fran on a wild ride around London while she navigates the grief of losing her mother. Tales of strange creatures that might have been introduced at each stage of her journey. Her adventure, often with best friend Alex in tow, is a psychogeography of the city and its suburbs, punctuated by encounters with Fran's semi-estranged dad, her out-of-touch East End nana, a selfish boyfriend, and the odd black dog or two.
As Fran says herself: monsters are all around us.

********

This is a rather sad tale drawn upon from the author’s own experience of losing her mother during her teenage years. Fran, the main protagonist, is seventeen years old and struggling to come to terms with the death of her mother. The death has propelled her journey into adulthood faster than she would’ve liked. The people that surround her either don’t know how to help her through her grief or selfishly can’t be bothered. As she works through each stage of her grief, you feel strong compassion for her and pity that no one was there for her.

As she takes her lonely journey from girl to woman, you watch as she learns to separate childish fantasies from the grim reality. Each section of the book begins with a description of a certain type of monster, that you find instantly replicated within the people she meets in that section, showing the hidden evils that lurk within us all.  You also watch helplessly as Fran travels through each stage of grief to work out how she can live without her mother.

The pictures are beautifully drawn and very detailed. The book is completely in black and white, which I felt added to the dark tone of the book. The content is quite sexually graphic at times, giving the book a harsh look at love, life and sex.

This is the first graphic novel I’ve read in years and it reminded me how much I enjoy them. A stunning and yet poignant look at life after the death of a loved one through the eyes of the young at heart.

Elijah's Mermaid by Essie Fox

Published by Orion Books 2012

387 pages

Part One: 

In Which We Are Introduced To Pearl And Learn Of Those Momentous Events That Occurred At The Time Of Her ‘Finding’

Article taken from The Times Newspaper: May 1850

MYSTERIOUS DEATH -Late on Thursday evening, Mr Davies, deputy coroner, held a lengthened enquiry at The Eight Bells public-house in Chelsea, touching the circumstances attending the death of an apparently  respectable woman, name unknown, whose body was found floating in the River Thames off Millbank on the morning of Monday last.

Summary from Waterstones

Saved from the Thames one foggy London night, Pearl grows up at the House of Mermaids - a brothel that becomes the closest thing to home. But despite being cosseted and spoiled by the Madame, come her 14th year, Pearl is to be sold to the highest bidder. Orphaned twins Lily and Elijah are on a rare trip to London when they meet the ethereal Pearl. And the repercussions of this chance encounter will bind all their fates together, in a dark and dangerous way. Bewitching, gothic

and sensual, this is a tale of love and betrayal in a world where nothing is quite as it seems.

*******

Reviewed by K. M. Lockwood

The synopsis above and the extract indicate the kind of shadowy Victorian mystery Essie Fox has created. This impression will be confirmed by the intricate and appealing cover and the strap-line: Deep Waters. Dark Secrets.

 The impression is correct. This is a sinister tale full of 19th century hypocrisy, convoluted plotlines and great foggy film sets of Victorian atmosphere.  The tale is told through Elijah’s diary, fragments of related texts and the voices of Pearl and Lily. It is helpful to have the chapter headings with their evocative quotations 

 It is deeply Gothic, perhaps more Wilkie Collins than Charles Dickens - and definitely not suitable for younger readers. Some aspects are very dark indeed, though handled with great empathy, especially for the women. 

 Essie Fox certainly knows her period detail (she keeps a fascinating blog: The Virtual Victorian - http://virtualvictorian.blogspot.co.uk/) and out of this a story encompassing art, secrets and the 19th century demi-monde of London has grown.

 My only slight reservation is that for me her choice of words occasionally broke the Victorian spell and jolted me back to the 21st century. But I cheerfully acknowledge it could be just my personal reaction. On the other hand, I thought her end notes and glossary were a welcome addition to the hardback.

 So in short, if you like an elaborate, atmospheric tale full of betrayal, disturbing characters and skeletons in family cupboards, then this is for you.

A Day in London During Olympic Mania

On Saturday 11th of August, my family and I jumped on an Olympic fan packed train and bravely headed to London for the day, to soak up a bit of the Olympic fever. If I am honest, I was a little nervous about going into central London during the Olympics, but I really didn't have any reason to worry. The atmosphere was electric; everyone was friendly and their was a real unity and community spirit lacing its way through the crowds. Everyone was happy and enjoying the greatest show Britain has ever put on for the world.

On arrival in London, we headed towards Buckingham Palace, as my kids had never seen it. We didn't realise that the men's Race Walk would be on and we were really pleased to be able to witness parts of the race.

Everyone in the crowds were cheering every runner on. There was a international spirit to the event.
After walking through St James Park, we headed over to Westminster Bridge to see Big Ben and the London Eye. Everything was gleaming and glorious. It was quite obvious that London had been given a complete makeover and everything look shiny and new despite its age.

We walked across the Golden Jubilee bridge and headed over to the London Eye, which on close up inspection seemed as tall as Big Ben! I can tell you now I have no wish to go on it as it sooo high up and my vertigo would kick in, leaving my legs unable to move. 

We were surprised to find that the London Eye, was the eye opening gateway to the Wonderland Park at South Bank. I have never ever been to South Bank and I was really surprised by how many different things were actually going on there.

It was amazing to visit it by day, but I get the feeling it is rather magical at night, with its night time maze and burlesque cabaret. It reminded me of Church Street Station in Florida, which I believe no longer exists.

 

There are a range of rides there which I thought were quite expensive at £5 a go (£10 with a photo). Luckily my girls are not really into rides and only one of them wanted to go on this. 

While in the Southbank I literally stumbled across the Family Fete held at Foyles for the publication of the Vintage Children's Classics. I had forgotten it was on and it was lovely to catch up with Lisa from Vintage and talk about the books. 

From the Southbank, we then headed over to the Science Museum. The kids love it there and really enjoy all the hands on experiments they can do it. It was lovely to spend a few hours here before heading off to watch The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in Kensington Gardens, which will be a whole other post later on. 

The Haunting of Nathaniel Wolfe by Brian Keaney

Pages - 233

Published in 2008 by Orchard Books.

It was a grimy March day and the smoke from hundreds of chimneys mingled its sooty breath with the mist that came drifting up from the river. By late afternoon the air had grown so thick it seemed to curdle your lungs. People went about business wrapped and muffled, coats buttoned up to their throats, scarves held over their mouths.
The fog transformed London.

The story is set in London during Victorian times. Nathaniel Wolfe works for his father, who happens to be the greatest medium in London. When he takes the stage, many follow him to speak to their dearly departed loved ones. Who will be lucky and get to speak to them?

Nathaniel knows his father is a fake, but in order to survive he has to help him. Until Nathaniel realises that he is actually the one who can see the spirits. Nathaniel is thrust into a chilling mystery where he must help to avenge the spirit from beyond.

I have to admit to being rather shallow and being attracted to the this book purely by its cover. It looked so creepy, with the ghost hovering in the background, that I just had to have it. The title had me too, as it reminded me of a book I read last year, called The Haunting of Cassie Palmer. Once I realised it was set in the world of fake mediums during the Victoria era, I knew I wouldn't be able to resist its charms for long.

I have to say this book definitely delivered the goods. For a teenage book, the ghost written within the story actually scared me a little. The way it was written, had me glancing around the room and listening very carefully to strange creakings within the house. I love nothing better than to be scared senseless by a ghost story.

Nathaniel is a fabulous lead character. As a young teenage boy, basically left to fend for himself, you witness his strength as well as his vulnerability. He is not prepared to see spirits, and you feel his fear with the arrival of the first apparition. Nathaniel leads a hard life, where his father is usually drunk and never worries about making sure Nathaniel has food and clean clothes. His father is a violent man too, definitely one to be feared. But worry not, the ending of the book is brilliant and Nathaniel is rewarded with a new life.

I enjoyed the setting of the book, as Victorian London sits fondly in my heart. I loved reading the descriptive passages which brought that era to life.

There is a second book in this series called Nathaniel Wolfe and the Bodysnatchers, which I do hope to read. It was nice to read a book in a series, which actually tied up all the loose ends, rather than keep you hanging on for months until the next book comes out.