From Sussex to the Cotswolds and Back Again
by Julie, still de-Christmasing in Somerville
Last fall I rediscovered Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell series. I’d read the earlier books years ago, but hadn’t kept up with the series. I did an interview with her on the Sisters in Crime Writers’ Podcast and was inspired by our conversation. Then post-Covid I wanted to take a journey with a new series, and started with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. I fell in love with the prose, and her incredible storytelling. As a writer I was inspired. As a reader (listener in this case) I was transported starting in Sussex, and then traveling around the globe in the 1920s with Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.
When I finished the series, I was a bit bereft. The next book comes out in February, but until then what? This was early December, and I desired cozy. Or, as they say in England, cosy. That’s when I took a trip to the Cotswolds. Specifically, to Cherringham.
The Cherringham series are short books. Less that four hours listening time, 130 pages or so. Novellas. Here’s the premise:
Set in the sleepy English village of Cherringham, the detective series brings together an unlikely sleuthing duo: English web designer Sarah and American ex-cop Jack. Thrilling and deadly – but with a spot of tea – it’s like Rosamunde Pilcher meets Inspector Barnaby. Each of the self-contained episodes is a quick read for the morning commute, while waiting for the doctor, or when curling up with a hot cuppa.
The series is written by Neil Richards and Matthew Costello. The narrator is Neil Dudgeon, who is wonderful. His American accent is good, he acts out each character with gusto, and is wonderful to listen to. Thanks to Cherringham, I didn’t watch television at all in December, but I was entertained. And I got a couple of knitting projects done, the house clean, and hundreds of steps logged.
When that series was done, I followed the authors Richards and Costello back to Sussex in 1929, this time to Mydworth in the Mydworth Mysteries:
Sussex, England, 1929. Mydworth is a sleepy English market town just 50 miles from London. But things are about to liven up there, when young and handsome Sir Harry Mortimer returns home from his diplomatic posting in Cairo, with his beautiful and unconventional American wife, Kat.
This series is narrated by Nathaniel Parker. Another wonderful English actor who narrates with gusto. His American accent isn’t as wonderful as Neil Dudgeon’s, though to be fair he’s acting as a 30 year old woman from Brooklyn, so the challenge is real. His Bunberry Americans are better. I’ve been listening to the bundles of audiobooks, so I only listened to six of these. They’re also shorter books/audio books. An evening of entertainment.
Next I decided to follow the narrator back to the Cotswolds, to Bunberry. Nathaniel Parker narrates the Bunberry Cosy Mystery series by Helena Marchmont, the pseudonym of Olga Wojtas. Another novella series with an evening’s worth of entertainment. Delightful.
Miss Marple meets Oscar Wilde in this new series of cosy mysteries set in the picturesque Cotswolds village of Bunburry. In “Murder at the Mousetrap,” the first Bunburry book, fudge-making and quaffing real ale in the local pub are matched by an undercurrent of passion, jealousy, hatred and murder – laced with a welcome dose of humour.
When I’m writing, my attention span is limited. Novella length listens are perfect. I can listen to them in one or two sittings, so I don’t have to keep the story in my brain. But the visits to English villages put me in the right frame of mind to write about my own village in Trevorton, MA.
I feel like I should have known about this publishing option, but I didn’t. (How do I sign on for one of these gigs?) By the time the next Mary Russell is released next month, I’ll be ready to immerse myself back in her world. But for now, my jaunts to the the Cotswolds and Sussex are a delight.
Do you listen to or read any of the series I mentioned? Or other novella length series (with delightful narrators) to suggest?
