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Allusion is not Illusion
You'll pry my books off my cold, dead body. By the time you shift them all I'll be flat and dessicated.
Currently reading
Winter's Tales
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (Penguin Classics)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Already Dead
The Rings of Saturn
Lady Audley's Secret
Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became "People" - And How You Can Fight Back
The City, Not Long After
You Can Sketch: A Step-by-Step Guide for Absolute Beginners
Lonely Werewolf Girl
Pleasant if not hugely innovative mystery of the "hapless folk move into house with mysterious goings-on" set-up. In this case, sisters Celia and Margaret and their brother Peter inherit a large old home where they used to visit their aunt as children. They stay there on vacation, along with Celia's husband Charles and a widowed aunt (of the sensible rather than skittish variety). Villagers tell them ghost stories but they suspect human causes for the strange noises interrupting their holiday. Especially since everyone and his brother keeps wandering round their property at night. When the cliche country constable fails to discover anything they decide to investigate on their own...Well, make that the men investigate. Celia is kind of a twit, and doesn't seem to have much in common with her independent and spunky siblings. Margaret could have been a really strong character except Heyer decided to make her fall in love and go all silly. This was one of the weakest points of the plot, that a sensible, happy adult woman would be so head over heels concerning a man she not only hardly knew but had every reason to be suspicious of. I just didn't believe she would have so much trust in Michael at this point, and really Heyer could have written it in such a way that she got to know him better and thus had some grounds for her devotion. Even an afternoon walk with intense conversation would have worked; a quick exchange of glances over a flat tire didn't do it for me.
For once I guessed the villain. Probably because there weren't that many characters! It wasn't that complex as mysteries go, but it was an amusing little read -- especially so soon after The Reluctant Widow, which is practically the same story only with an historical setting and slightly more romance.