Never the Bride

This is a strange, quirky but engaging book that I mentally retitled as ‘Strange Tales From Whitby, Told By An Even Stranger Person‘.

The story is told by Brenda who owns and runs a small B&B in Whitby. The book opens with Brenda introducing herself:

I love it here.

It’s the only place I could have settled down. I’ve never found a town like it, never in my long. long life

My name is Brenda. Hello!

Since the beginning of summer I have lived here, deliciously inconspicuous: just one more Bed and Breakfast lady in a resort that teems with Bed and Breakfasts Here, the streets are narrow and intricate; the rooftops are ramshackle and the wind is biting. The seagulls are as big as Yorkshire terriers and, for a good nine months of the year, show more this town is steeped in a thick sea mist… and that’s probably a good thing.

There are things here you don’t necessarily want to see.

Keep your head down, Brenda. That’s what I tell myself. Fry those sausages and eggs and bacon. Make those beds. Be welcoming. Be at home.

Any horror fan reading this is going to wonder if Brenda was drawn to Whitby because it’s a picturesque port on the Yorkshire coast, or because it was the port where Dracula’s ship the Demeter ran aground with not a soul aboard except the near-dead captain lashed to the wheel.

Whitby: picturesque seaside town

Whitby: where Dracula landed in England
To me, ‘Never The Bride’ read like a TV series of the strange and weird kind, aimed at gathering a cult following amongst those who are amused by the benignly bizarre and who enjoy uncovering genre references. Each chapter is a complete ‘episode’ in which Brenda and her friend and neighbour, Effie get involved with Whitby’s strangest visitors and residents, solving a mystery while moving the overall story arc forward. As the two of them discover the true price of visiting The Deadly Boutique for a makeover, or the downside of working as an elf at the Christmas Hotel, or the secrets the family staying at Brenda’s B&B is trying to hide or what a ghost-hunting reality TV crew will find in Effie’s antique shop, we gradually discover who Brenda really is and the legacy Effie has inherited from the generations of women who lived in Whitby before her.

The adventures are mild and amusing with some moments of tension. A bit how Dr Who was before the Doctor became The Oncoming Storm and The Destroyer Of Worlds. I liked Brenda. Effie can be a bit of a pain but somehow that made her friendship with Brenda more convincing.

By the end of the book, Brenda’s origin story and Effie’s legacy have been revealed and the two of them are established as the go-to team for dealing with anything weird in Whitby and we have reason to believe that there will be a lot of weird in Whitby.

‘Never The Bride’ made me smile. It was original and well-told, if slightly chaotic. I’m sure I’ll be back for more but this is the kind of series that I can’t read back to back without it losing its edge – like eating a whole box of chocolates in one sitting. show less

B&B owner Brenda and her neighbour Effie seek a quiet life and live in Whitby. This is a perfect setting for a gothic black comedy featuring mysterious makeovers, aliens on the run, the Christmas Hotel where it is always Noel, and the even more mysterious Mr Alucard, not to mention our heroine - who is not what she seems!

This book is a delight from page one, a gently hilarious and quirky tale of weird and wacky adventures for the not quite OAPs Brenda and Effie. The nods to Frankenstein, Dracula, The War of the Worlds and other classic novels of that ilk fit perfectly with the slightly otherworldlyness of Whitby.

Utterly fab and the good news is that there is a sequel out soon!

Effie keeps asking when I'll be due for my bus pass. She's guessed it must be soon. She already has hers and isn't too proud to get on the buses for nothing. Effie says that when I have mine, we'll go on trips together, up the wild north coast, and count the pennies we're saving. I haven't the heart to tell her my pension will never come. I can't bring myself to say I'm not on the official records. Really, I don't exist. It's hard to explain that to your best friend.

Brenda is a newcomer to Whitby. After a long and mysterious life, she has decided to settle down and is now the proud owner of a B&B. Her new best friend Effie, lives next door and runs a junk shop. But Whitby isn't the quiet seaside town that it appears on the surface, and show more there re plenty of odd people and mysterious events for Brenda and Effie to get their teething into. A short book and easy read, that left me keen to read the other books in the series. show less

It's like being in an old horror movie: the characters are quite ordinary people and the most extraordinary things happen to them. It kinda reminded me of Stephen King's "Needful Things".

This is the tale of Brenda, who runs a little B&B in Whitby. Summer is over, so she's settling into a quiet time of the year with her best friend Effie, who runs a junk shop next door. But it's not as uneventful as expected, with mysterious guests and incidents in the town. And neither Brenda nor Effie are quite who they appear to be either.

This was a fun read. Effie and Brenda are great characters, and while the book for a while felt like a series of disconnected incidents, it did all make sense as a whole by the end. The plot was not completely resolved, but left nicely open for others in the series. And since I liked Brenda & Effie, I'm happy with reading on in this series.

And if you're wondering why Whitby sounds familiar: it's show more where Count Dracula arrives in England. And that might give you a hint of what to expect with this series also. :) show less

15 Jan 2010 (Amazon)

Brenda has retired to Whitby to run a B&B. She likes an outing to Cod Almighty for fish and chips with her pensioner friend Effie, and they both like to keep their beady eyes on anything... strange that's going on in town. And strange there certainly is, from a Christmas themed-hotel with peculiar cocoa, to a beauty salon that turns back time a little *too* far, and a mysterious but very well groomed gentleman going by the name of Mr Alucard, who has updated himself somewhat since the old days.

Even Brenda and Effie have their mysteries, Brenda's in her own past, and Effie's in her family's, and we're soon on the rampage through Whitby's finest oddities as they investigate, nose and cause havoc. With a plot that's show more divided into long episodes, a cast of amusing and brilliantly-created characters, and writing that brings to mind the deadpan northern one-liners of old Corrie episodes, Jane Gardam, or dare I say it, Alan Bennett.

An excellent read - in fact a re-read as I have picked up the second Brenda & Effie story and wanted to reacquaint myself with their doings.

This is what I thought of it the first time:

Bought 11 Aug 2007 (Bookends) - reviewed 06 Dec 2007
An excellent novel set in Whitby, where strange goings-on in a rejuvenation centre and a Christmas themed hotel are investigated by a couple of rather strange pensioners. A bit camp, with in-jokes about classic horror literature and a galloping plot, I really enjoyed this and couldn't put it down. As I probably won't re-read (the plot is a very big part of it), I'm going to register it (even though it's a signed copy!!!) and give it to one of two people who regularly go to Whitby, so they can read and release it there!

Can't believe I got rid of a signed copy even though it probably went off to Whitby! show less

Quite amusing: two middle-aged ladies investigate mysterious and dark doings in Whitby, traditional home of mysterious and dark doings, but one of them is herself hiding a Terrible Secret. It is plainly obvious from about page 2 – if the title didn't give it away – who she is and what's her secret, but that doesn't hamper its entertainment value. The oddest thing about the book is that the whole of it is really just a prologue to the final chapter, and it ends on a cliffhanger. Presumably the author plans a series, but it's a little unsatisfying.