{"id":3579,"date":"2020-02-26T16:35:53","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T00:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=3579"},"modified":"2020-02-26T16:35:53","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T00:35:53","slug":"serena-kent-death-in-avignon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/serena-kent-death-in-avignon\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Kent: Death in Avignon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This was a delicious slice of armchair travel \u2013 I have never personally been to Provence, but I think my new life goal might be to get there.\u00a0 Serena Kent\u2019s British heroine, Penelope Kite, has started over in Provence after a divorce and seeing her children out of the nest.\u00a0 She\u2019s rehabbed a gorgeous old stone farmhouse (I\u2019m assuming it\u2019s gorgeous, because, by the sound of the book, everything <\/em>in Provence is gorgeous). She lives a pleasant life walking into the village for croissants, eating lots of incredible sounding meals, drinking wine that sounds just as luscious, practicing her cello, and oh yes \u2013 she has a flair for detection.<\/p>\n

As Penelope (call her Penny) lives in a small village, she\u2019s gotten to know a few folks (this is book two in a series), and one of them, Clemence, invites her along to an art opening.\u00a0 This, as it turns out, is a pretty classic Murder She Wrote<\/em> style setting for a crime.\u00a0 As Penny peruses the exhibit, she finds one artist who paints everything in black, one very feminist conceptual artist, a charming Brit ex-pat who is an absolutely awful painter, and one actually talented painter who uses antique pigments to achieve an otherworldly color effect.<\/p>\n

Of course, one of the artists meets his maker at the exhibit (by poisoned olive, no less), and Penny embarks on an investigation despite herself.\u00a0 As the killings begin to pile up, she finds herself more enmeshed in solving the original murder, but along the way the authors take you, the reader, on a fabulous tour of the Provencal countryside.<\/p>\n

This dream is interrupted by a visit from Penny\u2019s grown children, their spouses, and ill-behaved young, but it does force her to attend to the matter of rehabbing the bathrooms and making the house fit for guests.\u00a0 It\u2019s a pretty funny interval, and it reminded me very much of an updated version of Michael Bond\u2019s classic Monsieur Pamplemousse series.\u00a0 There\u2019s a similar light touch and tone to the proceedings.<\/p>\n

Penny also rediscovers her love of music, something she had put aside, and joins a group, expanding her friend base even further.\u00a0 The crimes, however, are tied to the art world, and the reader gets a good look into the life of some of the French galleries where the action occurs.\u00a0 While there\u2019s an element of satire to the storytelling, it\u2019s all pretty good natured.<\/p>\n

The denouement is pleasantly caperish and the book concludes with a gorgeous wedding, which also happens to thwart Penny\u2019s plans for a dinner a deux with a possible flame. There\u2019s always book three to look forward to \u2013 this series already feels like a comfortable, delicious old shoe, and I\u2019m hoping its life will be a long one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was a delicious slice of armchair travel \u2013 I have never personally been to Provence, but I think my new life goal might be to get there.\u00a0 Serena Kent\u2019s British heroine, Penelope Kite, has started over in Provence after a divorce and seeing her children out of the nest.\u00a0 She\u2019s rehabbed a gorgeous old … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[326,325,324,328,323,321,327,11,322],"class_list":["post-3579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-antique-pigments","tag-art-galleries","tag-cello-playing","tag-cozy","tag-death-in-avignon","tag-france","tag-house-rehabbing","tag-international","tag-serena-kent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3581,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3579\/revisions\/3581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}