236. & 237. House of Many Ways & Anything Goes
House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones - I discovered DWJ late on (as in, not when I was within her originally intended audience) and fell utterly in love with her books, to the point where she's the only author I will pre-order in hardback. As for House of Many Ways, it's a much-awaited follow-up to Howl's Moving Castle (if you ignore what is really just a cameo appearance for both Howl and Sophie's in Castle in the Air) which is a book I love immensely and have re-read multiple times.
The plot essentially centres on Charmain Baker, a teenage girl who is asked by a distant relative (who just happens to be a wizard) to look after his house while he's away being looked after by the elves. His house is, of course, magical and connects with various places, including the royal palace. Assisted by an apprentice her uncle had forgotten was coming, not to mention Sophie and an oddly-different version of Howl, Charmain becomes involved in the mystery of where the royal gold has disappeared to.
While not as good as the original book in the series, I really enjoyed House of Many Ways, though I probably found Howl almost as trying as Sophie does at times. Hopefully DWJ will have some more sequels in mind for Howl and co., though I'm usually more than happy with whatever she writes!
Anything Goes by Jill Churchill - one of the joys of book-swapping has been discovering entertaining series of books like this one, though of course the downside is then trying to get hold of the rest!
Lily and Robert Brewster, who are brother and sister, are the protagonists of Anything Goes, a detective novel set in the Depression in which they unexpectedly inherit a house once owned by a distant relative. Renaming it 'Grace and Favor House', they discover that there are conditions to their inheritance, one of them being that they have to live in the property for the next ten years or risk losing it to their odious cousin, Claude.
Given that they've both been barely scratching by in New York, it's a bargain both siblings are prepared to take on, even when they find a dead body in the kitchen and also discover that there's more of a mystery around their relative's death than they had previously imagined. Lily in particular sets herself the task of discovering what's happened and does so in fine form.
I very much enjoyed this book, more so than many of the 'cozy' detective series I've come across recently, and so I'll be keeping an eye out for the next in the series, In the Still of the Night.
The plot essentially centres on Charmain Baker, a teenage girl who is asked by a distant relative (who just happens to be a wizard) to look after his house while he's away being looked after by the elves. His house is, of course, magical and connects with various places, including the royal palace. Assisted by an apprentice her uncle had forgotten was coming, not to mention Sophie and an oddly-different version of Howl, Charmain becomes involved in the mystery of where the royal gold has disappeared to.
While not as good as the original book in the series, I really enjoyed House of Many Ways, though I probably found Howl almost as trying as Sophie does at times. Hopefully DWJ will have some more sequels in mind for Howl and co., though I'm usually more than happy with whatever she writes!
Lily and Robert Brewster, who are brother and sister, are the protagonists of Anything Goes, a detective novel set in the Depression in which they unexpectedly inherit a house once owned by a distant relative. Renaming it 'Grace and Favor House', they discover that there are conditions to their inheritance, one of them being that they have to live in the property for the next ten years or risk losing it to their odious cousin, Claude.
Given that they've both been barely scratching by in New York, it's a bargain both siblings are prepared to take on, even when they find a dead body in the kitchen and also discover that there's more of a mystery around their relative's death than they had previously imagined. Lily in particular sets herself the task of discovering what's happened and does so in fine form.
I very much enjoyed this book, more so than many of the 'cozy' detective series I've come across recently, and so I'll be keeping an eye out for the next in the series, In the Still of the Night.
