The Embroidered Sunset
by Joan Aiken
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Two old ladies have lived together for so long that even their friends find it difficult to tell them apart. One thing is certain, however - one of them is dead and the other has disappeared.Tags
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Lucy Culpepper doesn’t take no for an answer. An aspiring pianist, she dreams of being taught by the renowned Max Benovek and will defy all odds – life threatening illness, a missing great aunt, and a disgruntled uncle – to achieve it.
After finding out her Uncle Wilbie has used up her college fund, Lucy discovers a selection of enchantingly beautiful paintings in the attic. Being the miserly man he is, Wilbie wants to keep any possible profits for these paintings and bargains on sending Lucy to England to find the artist – Great-aunt Fennel. Knowing Benovek lives in London she snaps up the opportunity and undertakes the adventure of a lifetime.But though Benovek proves easy to find, and immediately takes Lucy to heart, she sets show more off to Yorkshire only to find that her old aunt Fennel has vanished. Lucy’s search entangles her in a mystery of murder and deceit . . . can they discover who is the real aunt Fennel? show less
After finding out her Uncle Wilbie has used up her college fund, Lucy discovers a selection of enchantingly beautiful paintings in the attic. Being the miserly man he is, Wilbie wants to keep any possible profits for these paintings and bargains on sending Lucy to England to find the artist – Great-aunt Fennel. Knowing Benovek lives in London she snaps up the opportunity and undertakes the adventure of a lifetime.But though Benovek proves easy to find, and immediately takes Lucy to heart, she sets show more off to Yorkshire only to find that her old aunt Fennel has vanished. Lucy’s search entangles her in a mystery of murder and deceit . . . can they discover who is the real aunt Fennel? show less
A middling effort by Joan Aiken. Principally interesting because it was published and apparently set in 1970. The heroine purchases a used duffle coat of the kind that I yearn for and will probably never be able to obtain. The descriptions are interesting but the book is too sentimental. "Blackground", published in 1989, was a stronger book.
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Author Information
216+ Works 19,833 Members
Joan Delano Aiken was born in Rye, Sussex, England, on September 4, 1924, the daughter of the Pulitzer Prize winner, writer Conrad Aiken. She was raised in a rural area and home schooled by her mother until the age 12. She then attended Wychwood School, a boarding school in Oxford. Her work first appeared in 1941 when the British Broadcasting show more Corporation, where she worked as a librarian, broadcast some of her short stories on their Children's Hour program. Aiken also worked at St. Thomas's Hospital, and in 1943 she moved to the reference department of the London office of the United Nations, where she collected information about resistance movements. She worked for the UN until 1949, all the while continuing to write stories. In 1953 a collection of short fiction called All You've Ever Wanted and Other Stories was published. While writing The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, begun in 1952, her husband became ill and died of lung cancer in 1955. After working for five years as a copy editor at Argosy Magazine, and at the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Firm, she returned and finished the book in 1963. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award and was made into a successful film in 1988. In 1969 The Whispering Mountain won the Guardian Children's Book Award, and in 1972, Night Fall won America's Edgar Allen Poe Award for juvenile mystery. Aiken is best known for her adult "fantasy" stories. She has received awards for children's fiction and for mystery fiction, and has also written ''sequels'' to Jane Austen books. She collaborated with her daughter to write many episodes of her Arabel and Mortimer the raven series for the BBC. In all, Aiken wrote 92 novels - including 27 for adults - as well as plays, poems and short stories, although she was best known as a writer of children's stories. Joan Aiken died in January of 2004 at the age of 79. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Embroidered Sunset
- Original title
- The Embroidered Sunset
- Alternate titles*
- Der eingerahme Sonnenuntergang; Die verschwundene Tante
- Original publication date
- 1970
- First words*
- Wenn es nicht ein Vergnügen gewesen wäre, Onkel William Culpepper zu hassen, hätte man es aus Pflichtgefühl tun müssen.
- Original language*
- Englisch
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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Statistics
- Members
- 79
- Popularity
- 402,398
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.14)
- Languages
- English, German
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 9
- ASINs
- 6
