Dave's Fiction Warehouse

In which I bloviate about books, TV, movies, politics and other stuff.

  • Books
  • Movies
  • TV
  • politics
  • Other Stuff
  • thatfuckingtrump

Connect

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Powered by Genesis

A dark and stormy night in England

December 17, 2012 by Dave Knadler

Best to read it before the reviews ...

Best to read it before the reviews …

Here’s a pretty good book for your holiday enjoyment: The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones. I learned about it via Maureen Corrigan’s review on the NPR web site, but if you’re interested I’d suggest saving the review for later. Ms. Corrigan has a way of spilling plot elements that are best discovered during the actual reading of the book.

And this book has a few surprises, which is just one of the wonderful things about it. It’s set in a threadbare Downton Abbey-style manor house, circa 1912, where the family tries to keep up appearances despite reduced circumstances. A birthday party for the eldest daughter begins to go awry when word comes of a “dreadful” train accident nearby. It appears the family will be called upon to temporarily house the survivors.

The book starts kind of slowly, but Sadie Jones has such a great way with character and dialog that I never considered putting it down. What starts as one sort of book ends up as quite another. I won’t say more, but it’s a great ride and you won’t feel cheated at the end. Also, it’s fairly short at less than 200 pages. If you’re in need of something to read on these long nights before Christmas, you could do a lot worse than this.

More along these lines:

  • fifty shades of grey cover review‘Fifty Shades’ to leave your lover
  • Long nights with Dostoyevsky
  • Eleventh of November, ‘Tenth of December’
  • ‘Game of Thrones’: Feel-good romp of the year
  • We return now to the blogster’s navelWe return now to the blogster’s navel

Filed Under: Books

About Dave Knadler

Obscure writer. Lazy photographer. Bashful guitarist. Perhaps too fond of wine. Tireless nemesis of New York Times crosswords, Wordle, Semantle and all other puzzles du jour.

Comments

  1. Deb says

    December 17, 2012 at 4:55 pm

    sounds like the perfect thing to unwind with and is now in my queue!

    • Dave Knadler says

      December 20, 2012 at 6:09 pm

      Let me know what you think.

Recent posts

  • We don’t need no stinking followers
  • This could be
    the last time
  • Still life with dicks
  • Not throwing away
    my shot
  • February fugue

Recent comments

  • Paul Silverman on We don’t need no stinking followers
  • Dave Knadler on We don’t need no stinking followers
  • Dave Knadler on We don’t need no stinking followers
  • Dave Knadler on We don’t need no stinking followers
  • Dave Knadler on We don’t need no stinking followers

FInd something

send dave cash

The obligatory PayPal donation button. Go ahead: Make my day.