Day two in my series showcasing my top reads of 2018, following the innovative idea of #bookvent from Jen Lucas of Jen Med’s Book Reviews.
Day two in my #bookvent countdown is a book I did not really expect to love, but which had me in fits of laughter. 2018 marked the centenary of the birth of the iconic writer Muriel Spark. Best-known as the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Dame Muriel was a poet, writer of fiction, criticism and literary biography, and was at the top of her profession, internationally, for more than half a century. My book choice is a tribute to Muriel Spark and captures the essence of Jean Brodie perfectly.
Fifty-something Shona is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, but has a deep loathing for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name.
Impeccably educated and an accomplished martial artist, linguist and musician, Shona is thrilled when selected by Marcia Blaine herself to travel back in time for a one-week mission in 19th-century Russia: to pair up the beautiful, shy, orphaned heiress Lidia Ivanovna with Sasha, a gorgeous young man of unexplained origins.
But, despite all her accomplishments and good intentions, Shona might well have got the wrong end of the stick about her mission. As the body count rises, will she discover in time just who the real villain is?
This book is delightful. What a hoot I had reading it. It is laugh out loud funny and a real charmer of a book. Imagine if you can a middle aged lady, who can only be from Edinburgh’s upscale area of Morningside. Down to earth sensible, very well-educated and conversant with several languages, she carries with her the confidence of one who has been to the best of schools, the titular Marcia Blaine’s School for Girls.
Now a librarian in Morningside’s Library, she knows it is her solemn duty to ensure that no borrower can ever lay hands on that travesty, that betrayal of a book which makes a mockery of her school’s dedication to academic and sporting excellence, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
Wojtas has put together a dazzling array of characters that truly come to life in this outrageous and irresistible comedy.
If you love to laugh, you have to read this book.
You can read my review here. Buy the book :
Live and Deadly 