You know what’s a great way to get some sewing done?
Leave the fabric on the kitchen table, go upstairs and curl up in bed with a good book.
I haven’t quite worked out how that’s going to end in a bridesmaid dress.
But I certainly know what I recommend you read while avoiding the work – Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series.
(Public Service Announcement: these books can be used for avoidance no matter what the action, wedding-related not required.)
“The daughter of a struggling greengrocer, Maisie Dobbs was only thirteen when she was sent to work as a maid for wealthy London aristocrats. But being bright and thoughtful beyond her years, Maisie studies her way to Cambridge, then serves as a nurse on the Front during the Great War. Now, it’s the spring of 1929, nearly ten years after the Armistice and Maisie has just opened up her own detective agency. Her first assignment, a seemingly open-and-shut infidelity case, will reveal a much deeper, darker mystery, forcing Maisie to revisit the horrors of the war and the ghost she left behind. Refreshing, absorbing, and beautifully rendered, Maisie Dobbs marks the beginning of an incredible new series.” ~Book jacket of Maisie Dobbs, first book in the series
A British-style mystery… and not only because it’s set in 1930s London. Maisie Dobbs is everything I love in a mystery – it’s character based, clever, and not scary.
I can’t handle scary. The only kind of book I don’t read? Thriller.
I get enough suspense thinking every bump in the night is a killer breaking into my home, with rope, knives, and feathers at the ready. (I can only assume there will be some level of tickling involved in any horrible form of torture.)
Back to Maisie. A strong, independent woman investigating crime against the backdrop of a London still struggling for normalcy after the devastation wrecked by WWI. I love Maisie. I love her dad and Lady Rowan, her benefactor. I love her assistant, Billy Beale, and her childhood friend Priscilla. I love the insight the series gives me into the impact World War I had upon England and I love imaging women wearing cloche hats.
Most of all, I love how every book touches me.
1930s fashion is dream world,
Megan
A 1930s Female Detective – You Know You’re Interested
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Book reviews by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about
