Guest Post: My Magnificent Seven Mystery Series by Robin Stevens (author of Arsenic for Tea)

I am absolutely overjoyed that today we have been joined by writer Robin Stevens, who has written a fab post for us about her favourite detective series for children. Murder Most Unladylike, Robin's first book in her Wells & Wong mystery series, was one of my favourite books of 2014, and the sequel, Arsenic for Tea, has a very good chance of making the 2015 list at the end of this year.

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My Magnificent Seven Detective Series by Robin Stevens

I’m really excited to have been asked to do this – any excuse to talk about mystery stories! Here are the seven mystery series that most influenced me as a kid, and that I think will still fire children’s imaginations today.

The Famous Five

These books were my introduction to mysteries. Sure, Anne, Julian and Dick are basically dead weight (George and Timmy the dog solve everything), and sure, the mysteries pretty much involve smugglers, smugglers and smugglers, but Enid Blyton is marvellous at creating worlds and groups that you're desperate to be a part of. Kirrin Island is just possible enough to feel like an achievable fantasy – a place where it’s always the summer holidays, delicious, mysterious food like macaroons is piled up in front of you at every meal, and you get to wander around in castles and triumph over bearded, villainous men. I wanted desperately to be a child that things happened to, and the Famous Five’s was my very favourite fantasy life.

The Secret Seven

Like the Famous Five, but more densely populated. I remember, even as a child, being infuriated by how little the girls were allowed to do (especially as the boys made so many mistakes) but again, I was fascinated by the concept itself – kids, going up against adults and WINNING. I had my own secret society with my best friend (as I think most kids did) and we looked frantically for mysteries to solve. It made me really imagine that I could be a detective – if even the Secret Seven could uncover dastardly dealings, surely I could be able to as well.

Sherlock Holmes

I first read these books aged 8, so for me they're very much for children. I loved how no-holds-barred they were: people really died. The stakes were high, and the peril was real, but Sherlock was such a dashing superhero that I knew he’d always be OK. I loved how unashamedly smart he was, too – the cases rested on real information, logically assessed. And even though the stories all take place in the real world, there’s something just a bit magical about them: Sherlock goes up against vampires, ghosts and pantomime-evil villains. Basically, there’s a reason that Sherlock Holmes is the most beloved detective the world has ever seen.

Harry Potter

I'm convinced that this is really a series of mystery novels (starring Hermione Grainger) that just happens to be set in a wizard boarding school. The mystery to be solved is always quite similar, along the lines of 'and where is Voldemort hiding this time?', but although it seems simple, the answer is always wholly unexpected. Rowling is a brilliant plotter and a very clever misdirector – I remember feeling genuinely astonished the first time I read each book, and delighted that I'd found a book specifically for children that could trick me like that.

Nancy Drew

Nancy Drew may not be enormously handy in a crisis (she screams and runs away a lot), but I loved her investigative style and her taste in coats (my favourite villain, incidentally, was Carmen Sandiago, for the same reasons). I liked the idea of a detective who was clever and also glamorous (why couldn't someone be both?) and I was so jealous about how free Nancy was. She had access to cars and boats and airplanes – she had all the benefits of being grown up with none of the boring bits.

The Sally Lockhart Mysteries

For me, this series has everything. A bold, clever, sharp-shooting heroine, a Victorian setting to rival Sherlock's, magic, mystery and exactly the right sort of romance. Just like the Holmes stories, too, there’s just a hint of magical otherness – you feel that anything could happen, and it usually does. Murders, fires, thefts, curses and terrifying mechanical contraptions capable of taking over the world, it’s glorious, swashbuckling stuff.

Encyclopedia Brown

My final pick is probably much lesser known over here than it is in its native country, America. All the same, I can’t mention my favourite mystery series without including it. As a kid I was absolutely hooked (and slightly in love with Encyclopedia himself), and I read Encyclopedia’s adventures again and again and again. The joy of them is that they’re such achievable mysteries – each story is only a few pages long, and hinges on a single logic problem which the reader must work out the key to. Basically, they ask you to spot what’s wrong with a scene: perfect puzzles for aspiring detectives to cut their teeth on.

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Huge thanks to Robin for taking the time to write this for The Book Zone. Murder Most Unladylike is available to buy right now and Arsenic for Tea is due to be released on 29th January.

Review: The Pirates of Pangaea by Daniel Hartwell and Neill Cameron

The year is 1717. The newly discovered island of Pangaea is the most dangerous place on Earth, where dinosaurs still walk the land - Sophie Delacourt has been sent to Pangaea to stay with her uncle. But little does she know its perils - for Pangaea is a lawless wilderness, teeming with cut-throat pirates! Kidnapped and imprisoned, Sophie must escape from the ruthless Captain Brookes and embark upon an epic journey, to find her way home.

It's nothing more than simple maths where this book is concerned:

Yes, Daniel Hartwell (no relation) and Neill Cameron's brilliant The Pirates of Pangaea, first seen in The Phoenix comic has finally been given its first collected edition, courtesy of those wonderful people at David Fickling books. Seriously, if you have kids who love comics (or kids who you would love it if they loved comics) then The Pirates of Pangaea is a must-buy book. I was a weekly purchaser of The Phoenix in its early days (and I still would be if I had kids), and although I adored the zany and madcap work of the Etherington Brothers, my favourite part of the comic by far was Hartwell and Cameron's dinosaurs and pirates mash-up.

The story follows the adventures of Sophie Delacourt, who, following the death of her parents, has been sent to live with her uncle, the governor of the remote tropical island continent of Pangaea. What Sophie doesn't realise until the voyage is almost at its end, is that Pangaea is not like the other islands she has heard of as it is still home to many species of dinosaur. 

The interior of Pangaea consists of vast areas of long grass that hide deadly predators, much the same as a quite and serene ocean may hide a school (or is it a shiver?) of vicious killer sharks. In order to travel throughout the interior, ships arriving at the port are craned onto the backs of huge sauropods, which then proceed to transport said vessels across the land. However, as this is set in the early 18th Century, there have to be pirates a plenty as well (of course), and they lie in wait for passing vessels, ready to attack with their own sauropod-mounted ships. Poor Sophie has barely made landfall when her own ship is attacked by a bloodthirsty band of cutthroats, and she is the only survivor.

Sophie is not your typical demure and retiring 18th Century young lady - she is quick to leap into the fray and the incredible creatures that inhabit Pangaea do not faze her at all. In fact, she quickly discovers that she might have a gift similar to that of a horse whisperer, something that will come in very handy as she attempts to escape captivity.

Daniel Hartwell's exciting, dinosaur-laden, swash-buckling adventure story is perfectly complemented by Neill Cameron's stunning graphic work. Neill was the talent behind the brilliant and visually stunning Mo-Bot High, but in Pirates of the Pangaea he has taken his artwork to a new level. Everything about his art in this comic is right: the sprawling Pangaea landscapes; the details of the dinosaurs and their ships; the depictions of the characters (especially the evil pirates); and the great colour palette used throughout (just feast your eyes on the image below, a promo poster that Neill Cameron produced for the launch of the comic). 

The Pirates of Pangaea is due to be published by David Fickling books on 5th February and it is well worth every penny of the £8.99 cover price. My thanks got to the wonderful people at David Fickling Books for sending me a copy to read and review.

(Pirates of Pangaea, all images and concepts ©2011 Daniel Hartwell & Neill Cameron)

Red Eye Blog Tour: My Magnificent Seven Scariest Books by Alex Bell (author of Frozen Charlotte)

And so the nightmares continue....

Yes, the Red Eye blog tour is back at The Book Zone, this time with author Alex Bell telling us about her Magnificent Seven Scariest Books. Alex is the author of Frozen Charlotte, one of the two books released this month by Red Eye, Stripes Publishing's new YA horror imprint. I've just finished Frozen Charlotte and it is very creepy and pretty terrifying on a psychological level. And if you have a phobia about porcelain dolls (which are creepy as hell at the best of times) the you certainly won't want to be reading this one at night time.


And so, over to Alex and her seven scariest books:


1. The Haunting of Toby Jugg by Dennis Wheatley - The first half of this book contains some of the best understated, unnerving horror I've ever read. You definitely feel the terror and helplessness of the main character in this one.

2. The Shining by Stephen King - I read this classic horror tale whilst staying in a very old hotel in New Orleans. As haunted hotel stories go, this has got to be one of the best. It’s a shame the topiary animals were replaced by a hedge maze in the film.

3. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James  - One of my favourite classic ghost stories – this creepy tale has an unreliable narrator and an ambiguous open ending as well as some pretty terrifying encounters in the house and the grounds.

4. This House is Haunted by John Boyne – John Boyne can write anything and excel at it. His ghost story is very much in the Dickensian tradition and contains some of the most bone-chilling scenes I’ve ever come across. A total masterpiece.

5. Florence and Giles by John Harding – I love this re-imagining of The Turn of the Screw. The language is a real treat and like nothing else you’ve ever come across before.

6. Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane – Not a horror book as such but Shutter Island definitely creeped me out with its themes of paranoia, madness and self-destruction.

7. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson – Another classic ghost tale, this one definitely delivers its fair share of scares.

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Huge thanks to Alex for taking the time to write this for us. The Red Eye Blog Tour is about to come to an end, so please head on over to http://reading-in-between-the-lines.blogspot.co.uk for its final stop.