Edith Holler, 12-year-old playwright, amazes as both narrator and illustrator of the fantastical novel that bears her name. She begins her story in 1901 at the Holler Theatre of Norwich, where Edith has spent her entire life--literally, inside the building. Her father, actor manager Edgar Holler, has warned her that the Holler Theatre will crumble to ruins if Edith ever dares to leave its confines. But she takes her readers on a journey into every corner and crevice of that theatre, delves into the strange history of Norwich, and pens her theatrical masterpiece.
Edward Carey indicates in his acknowledgments that Edith Holler took shape during the pandemic, and I promise you that he has created a character whose imagination cannot be locked down. Also, on a personal note, Edith's predicament brought back memories for me of growing up with eccentric kinfolk in a claustrophobic house, taking refuge in writing plays for backyard productions with the neighbor kids. Oh, the blood, the melodrama, and the salvation!
The witty and entrancing story of a young woman trapped in a ramshackle English playhouse—and the mysterious figure who threatens the theater's very survival
The year is 1901. England’s beloved queen has died, and her aging son has finally taken the throne. In the eastern city of Norwich, bright and inquisitive young Edith Holler spends her days among the boisterous denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave its confines. Fascinated by tales of the city she knows only from…
If We Were Villains is a tour de force! I began reading Rio's novel on a long flight, and the hours flew--full to bursting with suspense, mystery, and the fever-pitch passions among a group of young theater students at a Fine Arts college. These aspiring actors not only study and perform Shakespeare's plays: they live and bleed them, on and off stage, immersing readers in their own world of ambition, lust, jealousy, vengeance, sacrifice, and, possibly, love. The first scene opens with the narrator jailed for the murder of a fellow thespian, and the plot thickens, inexorably, from there on to the final curtain.
Oliver Marks has just served ten years for the murder of one of his closest friends - a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the detective who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened ten years ago. As a young actor studying Shakespeare at an elite arts conservatory, Oliver noticed that his talented classmates seem to play the same roles onstage and off - villain, hero, tyrant, temptress - though Oliver felt doomed to always be a secondary…
After reading and thoroughly relishing The Postscript Murders, two times, I could hardly wait for Elly Griffiths to bring back her ensemble cast of irrepressible characters. In The Last Word, Griffiths has succeeded again with debonair 84-year-old Edwin, glamorous and intense Natalka, and her devoted ex-monk boyfriend Benedict teaming up with DI Harbinder Kaur in a mystery so well-crafted that it deserves a second read just for the pleasure of the characters' company. On top of that, their latest intriguing case leads them to infiltrate a writer's retreat, where the participants are as quirky and sinister as the protagonists are astute and witty, providing reader-writers an extra layer of fun.
Words turn deadly with an unlikely detective duo on the case of a murdered obituary writer in this literary mystery from the internationally bestselling author of the Ruth Galloway series. Perfect for fans of Richard Osman and the Thursday Murder Club.
Natalka and Edwin are perfect if improbable partners in a detective agency. At eighty-four, Edwin regularly claims that he’s the oldest detective in England. He is a master at surveillance, deploying his age as a cloak of invisibility. Natalka, Ukrainian-born and more than fifty years his junior, is a math whizz, who takes any cases concerning fraud or deception.…
In post-Civil War New Orleans, Lenore James, a thrice-widowed woman of independent means, promises her audience a tale of amorous and murderous entanglements. She begins her story with her tender-hearted brother Gilbert hopelessly beguiled by Charlotte Eden, whose husband is enmeshed in the re-enslavement schemes of a powerful judge. In an atmosphere rife with misogyny and racism, Lenore fears Gilbert’s obsession with Charlotte will lead them all straight into disaster. Setting out to unravel the intricacies of the lives of others, Lenore also indulges her personal passion for stagecraft and the performing arts. While spinning one tale of shadow and light, concealment and revelation, she finds all the material she needs for another tale—a drama for the theater.
