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Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann
Published by Allison and Busby. 2025. Imagine being a sheep and finding your shepherd dead on the ground. What do you do? Why is he dead, how did he die? George was not the most usual of shepherds. He read to his sheep every day and he had dreams of taking the sheep to Europe. Sound a bit wacky? Indeed, it is rather far-fetched but in a reasonably believable way. George named all his sheep and so we come to know all their personalities as they weave their way to finding George’s killer. They seem to get around reasonably well and do a fair bit of spying on the villagers,…
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A Dreadful Splendour
By B.R. Myers. Harper Collins. Back when I was a teenager, we didn’t have the lovely young adult books available today. Once you were beyond what I called chapter books that were common for young readers, there were only adult books to read. I quickly took to reading books my mom read, many of them gothic romances. Think Victoria Holt, Phyllis Whitney, etc. I loved the combination of mystery, darkness and romance these combined. This genre seems to have fallen off my radar upon adulthood. While this book isn’t quite the same, it is a gothic murder mystery and there is a romance that evolves. And it definitely evokes some…