Showing posts with label Christmas mystery novella. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas mystery novella. Show all posts

Saturday, December 16, 2023

Book review : The Silent Christmas by M.J.Lee

The Silent Christmas
A Jayne Sinclair Genealogical Mystery Novella - Book 5 by M.J.Lee

My rating: 3.8 of 5 stars

A truly enjoyable Christmas novella that tells an extraordinary event that actually happened, through fictional characters and of course fictional dialogues.
---> Readable as a standalone, it's tagged as mystery but it's not a crime mystery ( at least not this book of the series ) , actually it is a search for history regarding people and events of the past.

---> The story takes place on 2 temporal planes: 1914 at the front, in the English trenches in Belgium and in 2017 in England, when the investigator Jayne Sinclaire tries to shed light on past events.

___ THE PLOT___

In 2017, Jayne Sinclaire, a genealogical investigator, receives a visit from a father and his son: they have found some old objects in the attic, belonging to his great-grandfather, of which they know nothing and would like to discover their history.

Back in time, in 1914, during the first year of World War I, private Tom Wright finds himself in the cold and in the mud, in the trenches, dreaming of being at home in England, with his wife and children preparing the Christmas goose.
A few hundred meters away is the German trench.
The soldiers of both trenches shout jokes about the war at each other, until one evening some Christmas trees appear from the German trench and classic Christmas carols are heard... here the magic begins... that magic that knows no flags and barriers and unites all men through the heart and the desire to live peacefully.
I'll let you enjoy the rest in the book. :-) it's touching.

___MY OPINION___

While I was fascinated by the backstory chapters (the events of which I already knew from non-fiction books I read in the past) and felt affection for the characters I read about.

Though I couldn't feel any emotion during the investigative chapters in 2017 and no empathy towards investigator J. Sinclair. That character seemed rather flat and insignificant to me.
For this reason I only gave 3.8 of 5 stars (all earned from the chapters of the past), if the storytelling of modern times chapters had also been a little bit more engaging I could have given 5 stars.

I want to add that I will read with pleasure other books by this author, hoping that in the other novels ( that are much longer than novellas ), even the character of today's temporal plane is well developed and can be more interesting than in the short story.

Still regarding the past part, I add that every time I read about that event, which happened spontaneously, outside of any war scheme and any imagination, I feel moved and I recommend everyone to read it because it is also an invitation to reflection.
Unfortunately, humanity has not learned anything and there are still wars that destroy innocent lives, but perhaps we, in our small circle of life, could try to learn something, give more value to feelings and people, without taking anything for granted .

About the Christmas Truce of 1914, a good film, with well-known actors, was made in 2005.
More I would like to advise you to read the collection of letters from the front, with the true testimony of the soldiers who took part in that very special event.

You can find more information about the movie and that book of letters collection in this post of mine from December 6th:

---> JOYEUX NOEL -MERRY CHRISTMAS (2005) THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE 1914.

( Thanks for reading my review, please, forgive any errors you may find in my text, English is not my mother tongue. Merry Christmas everybody ! :-) )

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Sunday, December 03, 2023

Book review : Upon the Midnight Clear by Tasha Alexander

Upon the Midnight Clear #13.5
A Lady Emily Christmas Story
Lady Emily Mysteries
by Tasha Alexander

My rating: 3.4 of 5 stars

Short Christmas story from a mystery series that I love very much, not only thanks to the 2 main characters, Lady Emily, an amateur sleuth, and her husband Colin, a spy in the service of the English crown, but also thanks to the historical part always included by the author in her novels and to the mysteries/detection aspect always very well thought.

While usually I really love the novels in the series (almost always 4 and 5 stars for me), the short Christmas stories had disappointed me a little so far: set at Christmas, they had nothing Christmas-like about them.
That didn't stop me from reading the last short Christmas story I had left with these protagonists and finally in this little book I was able to breathe a bit of festive air.

___THE PLOT___ London, 1901. While Lady Emily and her family are shopping in Hamley's toy shop, a stranger gives her three sons some Christmas crackers that, when opened, reveal a mysterious messages.
Meanwhile, a slightly eccentric man requests the help of Colin and Lady Emily to find his daughter, taken away by the parents of his wife who died during childbirth.

---> In this story, as in the longer novels is palpable the mutual love between Emily and her husband and the joy and serenity of the whole family with their 3 children and the faithful nanny.

The moments of shopping, ironic but affectionate jokes between the two spouses, the excitement of the children in opening the crackers, give a lively and fun atmosphere to the story.

The mystery of the disappearance of the daughter of the man, who hired our two investigators, is well thought out despite the brevity of the story and it's engaging until its conclusion.

---> The only thing that always annoys me are the dialogues that the author writes for the 3 children: they are 5 years old and even assuming that they are ultra-intelligent kids, at that age they cannot speak as politely as 20-year-old adults who they have already completed the entire course of their studies. We know that the 3 children already know how to read and one of them is a little genius... but the speeches made by all 3 children are unlikely in reality.

Despite this, I always recommend this series to all lovers of historical mysteries, in my opinion it is one of the best, especially if you love the historical component (don't start from the Christmas stories, start from the 1st or 2nd novel in the series)

(Thanks for reading my review, please pardon me for any errors in the text, I'm from Italy and English is not my language )

If you are interested in other reviews about Lady Emily mysteries you can find 2 of them here ( I also reaad other books in the series past years, but I didn't have my blog yet, I'm trying to rewrite them all, but it takes time )

BOOK #2 : "A Poisoned Season"

BOOK #3 : "A Fatal Waltz"


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