{"id":11476,"date":"2011-04-26T06:00:34","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=11476"},"modified":"2011-04-19T13:52:02","modified_gmt":"2011-04-19T19:52:02","slug":"the-flavia-de-luce-series-by-alan-bradley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/the-flavia-de-luce-series-by-alan-bradley\/","title":{"rendered":"The Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I don’t read a lot of mysteries, but at the suggestion of a good friend I picked up The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, the first in a series by Alan Bradley starring wannabe detective Flavia de Luce.\u00a0 Flavia is one of the most unique protagonists I have seen lately:\u00a0 she’s smart, inquisitive, resourceful, and witty.\u00a0 She has an obsession with chemistry, especially poisons.\u00a0 Oh, and did I mention that she’s eleven years old?<\/p>\n

In The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, we are introduced to Flavia and her family, who are living in an estate called Buckshaw in\u00a0England in the 1950s.\u00a0 Her mother disappeared when she was a baby, so Flavia is left with her distant father, her\u00a0antagonistic older sisters, and man-about-the-house Dogger.\u00a0 Things are boring as usual at Buckshaw when\u00a0Flavia discovers a dead man in their cucumber patch in the middle of the night.\u00a0 When Flavia’s father is taken into custody as the prime suspect, Flavia gets on the case to find out who really did it and prove her father’s innocence.\u00a0 Flavia follows a series\u00a0of initially puzzling clues (including an antique postage stamp and a dead bird)\u00a0that lead to the identity of the killer, making for an exciting and surprising climax.\u00a0 I listened to the audiobook<\/a><\/strong><\/em> and it’s very enjoyable; the reader manages to capture Flavia’s spirit very well and make it an exciting listen.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After finishing this book I had to immediately go out and pick up a copy of the second in the series, called The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag<\/a><\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Flavia meets a traveling puppet show team whose car has broken down, and so they elect to do a series of shows in Bishop’s Lacey while they are waiting for the repairs.\u00a0 When the star of the show is murdered, of course Flavia is the first one on the case.\u00a0 I’m in the middle of it right now and I’m glad to say that Flavia has kept her\u00a0cheek and tenacity fully intact.\u00a0 The third book in the series, A Red Herring Without Mustard<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, just came out a couple months ago to rave reviews, and it’s certainly next on my “To Read” list.\u00a0 If you like mysteries with a strong female protagonist, the charming setting of England, or mysteries that really keep you guessing right up to the end, this series will not disappoint.\u00a0 Even if you don’t usually read mysteries, I recommend checking out this series, because I’m sure you’ll enjoy getting to know Flavia de Luce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t read a lot of mysteries, but at the suggestion of a good friend I picked up The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, the first in a series by Alan Bradley starring wannabe detective Flavia de Luce.\u00a0 Flavia is one of the most unique protagonists I have[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[361,10,8],"tags":[80,1568,333,1609],"class_list":["post-11476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-books","category-books","category-staff-picks","tag-england","tag-murder-mysteries","tag-mystery","tag-quirky"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-2Z6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11476"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11570,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11476\/revisions\/11570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}