Recommended Reading: The Flavia De Luce Series

Last year my grandmother, my cousin, and I, started a book club of sorts. One book series that we discovered, and thoroughly enjoy, are the Flavia De Luce novels by Alan Bradley. We've only read the first three, but we immediately fell in love with the precocious eleven year old heroine, Flavia.

Young Flavia lives on her palatial family estate in the quiet village of Bishop's Lacey, England, during the 1950's. She lives with her two older sisters with whom she is constantly at sisterly war, and her distant father who, like any proper Englishman, won't show his grief over the death of his wife, Flavia's late mother. Armed with a vernacular to rival any adult, Flavia has a mind for science, chemistry, specifically. She revels in the privacy of her own wing, complete with her very own laboratory and ancient chemistry texts. Fortunately for Miss De Luce, the sleepy town of Bishop's Lacey becomes much more interesting as it becomes clouded in various mysteries.

The books read much like tales of Sherlock Holmes. Flavia is highly intelligent, curious, and bears a razor sharp wit. She narrates these stories with Sherlock-esque flair. And with it there's a whole new layer of humor, given her age and station in life. It's sort of unique to have a young girl narrate adult fiction novels, dealing with murder, deception and other sinister plots. Have I piqued your interest yet?

There are are now a total of five books in the series...

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag
A Red Herring Without Mustard
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
Speaking From Among The Bones

And coming in 2014, Mr. Bradley will publish The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches. Of the three we read, I think I enjoyed A Red Herring Without Mustard most, but just start at the beginning, I'm sure that you'll adore the little scientist detective. I for one, am quite looking forward to reading them all!