The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

I admit it: I underestimated Flavia de Luce.

She is 11 years old, self-schooled, and lives outside a small English town in the 1950s. She is overlooked and underestimated by everyone. Deep inside, I’m still 11 years old, underestimated, and overlooked. I had an insatiable desire to learn about my environment, and I often saw things others didn’t. Flavia also reminds me of my childhood living in the country in the 1980s. I ran unchecked, safe, and constantly delighted in discovering new things about my corner of the world. I wince at the de Luce family politics. I cheer Flavia’s… show more.

The heroine of this story is as quirky as some of the heroines in my books. In some ways, Flavia de Luce is quite adult, but in other ways she's quite young with a refreshing outlook on life and the people around her.

I love the way she examines a problem, decides if it's something she can research and then just goes about doing so, regardless of what the adults around her say. She has a take-charge attitude that is often misplaced but always confident (often wrong, but never in doubt, perhaps)?

Flavia de Luce is a know-it-all pre-teen, but Bradley pulls off the trick of making her fun to read.

She lives in a small 1950s English village prone to suspicious deaths, in a crumbling mansion called Buckshaw, where she likes to tinker in her uncle’s old chemistry lab. Somehow Flavia is both heartbreaking—her mountain-climbing mother disappeared years ago, and her older sisters are total brats—and delightful.

I want to give her a hug, and even more, I want to write a character with equal parts heart, smarts, and sass that readers will fall in love with. She might not be… show more.

I’m a sucker for mysteries that feature unlikely sleuths, and young Flavia de Luce is just that sleuth.

Because she’s a child, people underestimate her, but she has the curiosity, intelligence, and innocent humor that makes her the perfect investigator. More than once I laughed at her antics and marveled at how someone so young could make the deductions she did.

A fun and satisfying mystery, all around.

This may seem like an odd choice considering the other more hard-boiled adult crime fiction books named above, but I love Bradley’s Flavia de Luce character, the twelve-year-old detective who detests her sisters and loves chemistry and poison. The books are laugh-out-loud humorous, and the writing is always outstanding.

Flavia de Luce, eleven, at Buckshaw in Bishop’s Lacey, a bucolic hamlet in the English countryside, has a passion for poisons. Bright, bored, and with a nose for trouble, Flavia begins to put together things that do not go together in a series of cases that showcase her mind, grow up her heart, and keep her busy whilst her body matures. There are secrets begging for revelation in her quiet home just as there are secrets in and amidst her own clan. Two older sisters, an absent-minded father, and not enough money go to create Flavia as ingenious, resourceful, and… show more.

Meet Flavia DeLuce, a precocious eleven-year-old with a passion for chemistry and murder. Do not underestimate her! This is no children’s story. It’s a brilliantly written cozy set in the quaint English village of Bishop’s Lacey. 

Flavia is a charming sleuth, untainted by adult cynicism yet wise enough to unravel tricky mysteries. When she’s not conducting chemical analyses on suspicious substances, she pedals through the countryside on her trusty bicycle, Gladys (delightfully brought to life by Flavia’s imagination).

Once you meet this cast of eccentric and memorable characters, you’ll be as eager as I am for another visit to Bishop’s… show more.

Okay, so I’m cheating right off the bat because many will argue that the Flavia De Luce series, though it has an 11-year-old girl as its central character/narrator, is not YA. And, I admit, the brilliant Alan Bradley series is found in the general fiction section in many libraries. But, I don’t care. Teens who haven’t read the books should read the books. And for those readers who also want to write fiction, Bradley’s creation of the wonderful cast of characters, highlighted by the precocious, brilliant, laugh-out-loud funny Flavia is a creative writing class everyone needs to pay very close… show more.

Flavia is part Tomboy and part genius chemist; an endearing teenage girl who often says things that had me laughing out loud, but who also becomes a clever sleuth racing to reach the conclusion of a case ahead of the Chief Detective. This series is full of charm and humor while never losing focus of the story.