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Fiction.
Mystery.
Thriller.
Historical Fiction.
HTML:In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950—and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”
To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder. And in a police cell, during a violent thunderstorm, Colonel de Luce tells his daughter an astounding story—of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, of a priceless object that vanished in a bizarre and brazen act of thievery, of a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school’s tower thirty years before. Now Flavia is armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together, to examine new suspects, and begin a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself. Of this much the girl is sure: her father is innocent of murder—but protecting her and her sisters from something even worse….
An enthralling mystery, a piercing depiction of class and society, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a masterfully told tale of deceptions—and a rich literary delight.… (more)
citygirl: Castle is much darker and Flavia is more adorable than creepy (Merricat is quite creepy), but if you're interested in unusual young protagonists, with a very particular world view, try these.
BookshelfMonstrosity: Though Sweetness is more of a traditional mystery, it shares with Where'd You Go, Bernadette an endearing, precocious, and entertaining young narrator who pieces together clues from the adult world to solve a mystery. Character interactions are delightfully, humorously depicted.… (more)
raizel: Both stories about brilliant and quirky children were recommended at the same time by my daughter. T.S. Spivet is the more real character and the book is beautifully written. Yes, T.S. Spivet is a boy, but I'm not sexist enough to let that bother me.
y2pk: Pre-teen girl investigating adult crimes, while putting up with her sometimes-strange family and home life. Emma Graham also appears in two other books, Cold Flat Junction and Belle Ruin. They should be read in order.
This was an interesting historical mystery set in England in 1950. The mystery is told to us by eleven-year-old chemist Flavia de Luce. Flavia who lives with her father and two older sisters is a chemist with a particular interest in poisons.
The story begins with her being bound, blindfolded, and thrown into a closet - by her two older sisters. She manages to escape but begins to plan her chemical revenge. Oil of poison ivy added to her rather vain oldest sister's lipstick will make an interesting experiment for Flavia.
However, events turn deadly when Flavia finds a man dying in the cucumber patch in her family's garden. She had recently overheard him arguing with her stamp-collecting father. The family's gardener Dogger was also listening in. Now, with the man dead, and her father accused of the murder, Flavia needs to find the true killer to save him.
The mystery leads Flavia to a missing famous stamp and a suicide that happened thirty years earlier to which her father was a witness.
While I didn't like Flavia at the beginning who seemed quite a sociopath to me, I did come to like her and enjoy her using her great intelligence and knowledge of chemistry to help the police find out what happened to the man in the garden and the very valuable stamp.
only rarely do I find my belief in this twelve year old's abilities wavering. She is more like a real child then many fictional characters and the mystery is well and classically plotted ( )
Overly long and repetitious at times with too many fortunate coincidences. A nice challenge for pint-sized mystery buffs nevertheless as well as adults who just want a bit of lighter reading. But I remain undecided as to whether Bradley's little protagonist is just a plucky young genius or a vindictive sociopath in the making (she toys with poisoning her sisters and a fresh corpse makes her positively giddy). A pretty dull read overall but I''m not ready to abandon the series quite yet. ( )
Flavia de Luce is an 11 year-old with a quick brain and a penchant for chemistry, particularly the chemistry of poisons. When a stranger dies in her family’s garden, she suspects that poison is the culprit, and when the authorities prove too slow at solving the case for her – and especially when her father is pinned as Suspect #1 – Flavia decides to solve it herself.
I know that many people don’t like this one because they think Flavia is too precocious for her age, but I don’t really think it’s too far of a stretch. And yes, she’s pretty darned annoying, but I think (or at least I hope) that in this case the problem is the point – she’s supposed to be irksome (as I suspect some genius children actually may be, to be honest). So with those things I don’t have an issue. Still, I didn’t love the book. The plot was overly convoluted, to the point that the various U-turns and red herrings became exhausting, and in the end, the wrap-up felt trite and tired. But by far the biggest annoyance was that the narrator of the audiobook didn’t bother to learn how to pronoun the *one* Latin word in the book, which turned up on several occasions. Honestly. How hard would that have been? And it was doubly annoying that a character whose key trait is her polymath abilities wouldn’t know how to pronounce one of the very first words you learn in Latin 101. Cripes. ( )
Oh, what fun! I loved Bradley's word-crafting: so delicious and imaginative. And parts were so droll I laughed aloud till I had tears in my eyes.
Flavia is indeed an obnoxiously precocious and mildly wicked youngster, but just vulnerable enough to be forgiven. So glad I found my way to this series. Looking forward to more! ( )
Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie, who cares for all the crinkling of the pie?
The Art of Cookery (1708), William King
Dedication
For Shirley
First words
It was as black in the closet as old blood.
Quotations
That means King George the Sixth, and King George the Sixth is not a frivolous man. (chapter four)
It is not unknown for fathers with a brace of daughters to reel off their names in order of birth when summoning the youngest, and I had long ago become accustomed to being called "Ophelia Daphne Flavia, damn it." (chapter 16)
It occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No... eight days a week. (chapter 5)
My particular passion was poison. (chapter 1)
'I have forgot much, Cynara! Gone with the wind, ... I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! In my fashion'
It's from his Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae. Perhaps you know of it? I shook my head. It's very beautiful, I said.
Fiction.
Mystery.
Thriller.
Historical Fiction.
HTML:In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950—and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”
To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder. And in a police cell, during a violent thunderstorm, Colonel de Luce tells his daughter an astounding story—of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, of a priceless object that vanished in a bizarre and brazen act of thievery, of a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school’s tower thirty years before. Now Flavia is armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together, to examine new suspects, and begin a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself. Of this much the girl is sure: her father is innocent of murder—but protecting her and her sisters from something even worse….
An enthralling mystery, a piercing depiction of class and society, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a masterfully told tale of deceptions—and a rich literary delight.
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I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.
In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction — eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950 — and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia's family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw.
An enthralling mystery, a piercing depiction of class and society, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a masterfully told take of deceptions — and a rich literary delight.
-----------------------------
For very-nearly-eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, the discovery of a dead snipe on the doorstep of Buckshaw, the crumbling de Luce country seat, was a marvellous mystery — especially since this particular snipe had a rather rare stamp neatly impaled on its beak. Even more astonishing was the effect of the dead bird on her stamp-collector father, who appeared to be genuinely frightened. Soon Flavia discovers something even more shocking in the cucumber patch and it's clear that the snipe was a bird of very ill omen indeed.
As the police descend on Buckshaw, Flavia decides it is up to her to piece together the clues and solve the puzzle. Who was the man she heard her father arguing with? What was the snipe doing in England at all? Who or what is the Ulster Avenger? And, most peculiar of all, who took a slice of Mrs Mullet's unspeakable custard pie that had been cooling by the window...?
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1
The story begins with her being bound, blindfolded, and thrown into a closet - by her two older sisters. She manages to escape but begins to plan her chemical revenge. Oil of poison ivy added to her rather vain oldest sister's lipstick will make an interesting experiment for Flavia.
However, events turn deadly when Flavia finds a man dying in the cucumber patch in her family's garden. She had recently overheard him arguing with her stamp-collecting father. The family's gardener Dogger was also listening in. Now, with the man dead, and her father accused of the murder, Flavia needs to find the true killer to save him.
The mystery leads Flavia to a missing famous stamp and a suicide that happened thirty years earlier to which her father was a witness.
While I didn't like Flavia at the beginning who seemed quite a sociopath to me, I did come to like her and enjoy her using her great intelligence and knowledge of chemistry to help the police find out what happened to the man in the garden and the very valuable stamp.
This is the first of a ten-book series. (