Jennie Godfrey

Best of 2025

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Best of the year lists are so difficult!  I’ve given myself leeway to divide books into categories – cozy, historical, best all around – giving me a chance to spotlight more great reads.  All of the reviews appear either on this website or over at Deadly Pleasures (or both).  Deadly Pleasures also features my pared down top 10 list.  Here are 30 great reads culled from the 100 or so books I read each year.  My standard is simple – a book that stays with me long after I finish it, great writing, great characters.  There are veterans and newbies here.  Dive in! read more

Jennie Godfrey: The List of Suspicious Things

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This isn’t exactly a mystery but it does have plenty of crime.  Jennie Godfrey creates a 12 year old character as memorable (and perhaps more rooted in reality) than Flavia DeLuce.  Miv, the heroine of the story, lives in 1970’s Yorkshire, with her Dad, her Aunty Jean, and her mother, who doesn’t speak and spends most of her time in her room.  Miv is pretty much left to her own devices but is happy enough hanging out with her best friend, Sharon.

Margaret Thatcher has just been elected and the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper is in full swing.  While Miv and Sharon are someone insulated from the stories about the Ripper, the news coverage is beginning to grow, and it is becoming unavoidable not to know about him.  The boys at her school even play a game called “Ripper chase.” read more