a gallimaufry

The Agency for Scandal, by Laura Wood

I generally find January a difficult month. All the sparkly Christmas lights have been cleared away and the denuded Christmas trees lie dying on pavements or at the end of gardens. The weather is always grey and dispiriting. At our school, it is the end of one semester and the beginning of another, often demanding extra administration or meetings when really all you want to do is hide under a pile of blankets. And of course, I have blown all my New Year’s Resolutions by the end of the first week and feel disgusted and frustrated with myself.

(Walter Sickert, Girl at Window, Little Rachel, 1907, oil on canvas; Tate Gallery, London; found here)

In short, Dry January or any of the other improving initiatives on which people embark this month are not for me. I require all the booze, chocolate and hot-water bottles I can lay my hands on to get through it without becoming a right old git.

It may therefore come as no surprise to you when I write that I steer well away from challenging books in January. It’s a month of children’s books and classic detective stories for me (Children of Blood and Bone was outside my comfort zone but so compelling I had to read it anyway). And fortunately for me, the perfect antidote to January was published this month, and it comes in the form of Laura Wood’s novel The Agency for Scandal.

At the back of the book the author notes her love of Georgette Heyer and essentially The Agency for Scandal is a Heyer novel – of The Talisman Ring or The Masqueraders strain – set in Sherlock Holmes’s London and as such is absolutely perfectly pitched. If this sounds like your area of interest, then run don’t walk to the nearest library or bookshop and don’t pay attention to the YA marketing.

Our heroine is Isobel Stanhope, daughter of a baron who died leaving his family with no money. In order to keep her beloved little brother at school and her fragile mamma from learning the true horrors of the family finances, Isobel has secretly taken a job. One that makes use of her skills in acting, quick thinking and lock-picking. She works for the Aviary, an agency that investigates wrongs done to women and either rights them – or gives the women the material to blackmail their awful husbands into giving them a better life. Isobel is also hopelessly in love with the Duke of Roxton, who is of course desperately rich and handsome and unaware of her existence. Life begins to get even more interesting when the Aviary is asked to investigate Lord Morland, who just happens to fancy himself as the next prime minister – and who runs the British secret service... Soon there are burglaries, mysterious jewels, double-crossing and all-round dastardliness...

It is charming and well-paced, the characters are delightful and it is just a pleasure to spend an afternoon reading it. Yes, isobel’s skills with a lockpick and sleight of hand do rather strain credulity at times. I hope there will be sequels and I am looking forward to seeing how Wood will square a heroine who despises the empire and challenges the status quo with a hero who works for the secret service. Perhaps, though, that would be to smash with a hammer a light and skilfully written romantic comedy – and a good romantic comedy is a precious thing indeed.

(Louis Anquetin, Two Ladies in the Forest, 1889; pastel on paper; found here; a little too early for The Agency for Scandal but it captures something of the Aviary's spirit for me)

Happy 2023!

A belated Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and have started 2023 in the nicest ways possible.

For me, one of the highlights of Christmas this year was going to see the Royal Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker in London with my mother and daughter. It was everything you would want a ballet to be: beautiful music, expertly played by the orchestra; lovely sets and costumes, and, most important of all, exquisite dancing. Not that I am an expert, but I actually cried a bit while watching it, and more than once too. The audience was filled with little girls in sparkly velvet and net dresses and it was one wonderful, happy experience. It’s shown every year and I thoroughly recommend it.

After a frantically busy couple of months, I finally and tardily finished reading Brian Attebery’s absolutely brilliant new book, Fantasy: How it Works, which I reviewed for Shiny New Books. If you don’t have time to wade through my turgid prose, just go out and buy/borrow it. It explains why fantasy isn’t just childish escapism, and analyses lots of books to discuss how it works and what it does. All in a very readable, chatty style.

(And look at that gorgeous cover!)

For the rest of the holidays, I enjoyed lounging about reading both in the UK and here in Belgium. In fact, I have rearranged a corner of the sitting-room for maximal reading and lounging pleasure. It’s also easier for me to write there, for I have been writing (just not here).

I spent September to the endish of December following the Golden Egg Academy 12-week Write Your Successful Children’s Novel course. It was brilliant and if you are thinking of writing for children, I highly recommend it. There are no entry requirements, and week by week you learn how you actually put a book together, what to think about, what to develop and how to structure it. It is really practical, and handily it’s distance learning so you can do it at your own pace. Pretty much every week there is a Zoom or FaceBook meeting with the course leader, Imogen Cooper, who is just the nicest person as well as hugely experienced, and you can ask questions and get advice. At the end you can send in your first 2000 words plus a synopsis for one of the Golden Egg editors to evaluate. I have to say that the feedback was very helpful and perceptive.

After another busy few weeks at work I am keen to get back to work on my book. One of the elements I hadn’t been sure about was having a dual narrative, and the editor suggested that sticking to one viewpoint would be better. My book’s other massive weakness, caused by my tendency to plot as I go along rather than before I start, is that there is too much going on and not enough focus on the main theme. So it’s time to prune and plan (at least a bit) before getting back down to writing. The feedback has really enthused me to carry on. I hope to have a reasonable first draft ready by the end of the summer, so that I can re-apply for the 12-month course on developing your children’s novel.

Because of all this I have mainly been reading children’s novels, especially recently published ones. Here are some of them, in short!

The Poisoned Pie Mystery, by Nicki Thornton  

A boy to whom accidents just keep on happening, a talking cat who is also a master detective and a lot of cake… This is a brisk and chirpy novel for children of about 9+. The author does something quite daring with the parents, which I did not see coming.

The Hounds of the Mórrigan, by Pat O’Shea

An older work but a wonderful immersion into Irish mythology, as Pidge and Brigit journey through a magical landscape in search of a drop of the Mórrigan’s blood. Truly magical, the many joys of this book include the characterisation of the children, who act and speak like real children, and the creatures they encounter.

Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi

In a mythical sort-of version of Nigeria called Orïsha, the maji are people who used to have magical powers but lost them suddenly twelve years ago. Now they are oppressed and enslaved by the majority kosídan and their cruel king, but maybe there is a way for teenaged Zélie and her friends to restore magic and end the tyranny. This is the first YA novel I have ever read and my was it bloodthirsty! But the story is compelling and I loved the setting.

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place, by Julie Berry

I don’t think this book is very well known outside the US? But it should be. An exciting opportunity is delivered to the students of St Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies in nineteenth-century Ely, when their horrid headmistress and her brother both drop dead: poisoned. Rather than informing the authorities, the girls decide to continue as usual and enjoy their freedom, pretending that the two victims are still alive. Of course, this becomes increasingly farcical and meanwhile the murderer is still lurking about. A bouncy entertaining read and the American author gets pretty much everything British spot on and believe me that is high praise.