From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce, #1)

Alan Bradley

Start date: June 1, 2020

Finish date: June 30, 2020

Discussion: Group reads

Why we're reading this: The first in this popular series won the poll for our June group read.
[close] The first in this popular series won the poll for our June group read.

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Showing 2 of 330 topics — 11,888 comments total

Group reads

* November 2025 group read - Winner!
By Judy · 20 posts · 31 views

last updated Sep 17, 2025 08:43AM

* Sept 25: Lonesome Road (#3 Miss Silver Mysteries) by Patricia Wentworth
By Susan · 16 posts · 16 views

last updated Sep 19, 2025 01:03PM

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What Members Thought

Sep 30, 2020 David Bryant rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Charming in exactly the way we'd like it to be for a story based in a small English village in the 1950s, involving traditional people, traditional values, and the quirks we love to attribute to the village characters, places, and daily lives, whether or not they are "true."
I fell in love with the lead character, Flavia, within the first few pages. The sassy, smart, inquisitive 11 year-old girl reminded me a bit of the young girl living in the hotel in "A Gentleman in Moscow."
This is totally a ...more

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Apr 11, 2016 Jazz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: series, amateur-sleuth, mystery-british, mystery-magic, mystery-country-house, best-of-2016

I thoroughly enjoyed this charming novel, the first of the Flavia de Luce mysteries. Set in 1950, Flavia is a precocious 11-year-old girl with a passion for chemistry and, in particular, poisons. Her widowed father and her two older sisters live on the edge of bankruptcy in Buckshaw, the once-grand ancestral home. When a dead bird with a prized postage stamp in its bill and a dead man turn up on the grounds of Buckshaw in the space of 24 hours, Flavia must use her skills and determination to unr ...more

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Jul 17, 2014 Francine rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery

Only a 3* because at time I began to be annoyed with Flavia. I also find the writing a bit pompous and frankly I skipped a few pages here and there. Will give the second book a chance.

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