The Squared Circle
An Alumière Sisters' Adventure
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Who’ll protect a sleepy English village from a terrifying werewolf, when those who could, don’t believe in it?
When the silver screen comes to Hawkinge-By-Hythe, it unleashes a ravenous werewolf on the town. Ordinarily, the scientific Alumière sisters would jump at the chance to get their teeth into a really good werewolf. But the three identical, pork pie-hatted Alumières are sick of being called witches, and refuse to touch it.
Handsome, young entrepreneur, Lorry Tassel, would love to ignore the werewolf, but keeps bumping into it while visiting flame-haired beauty, Ruth Leeds. And he can’t shake his suspicion that the beast shares his taste for redheads… Then there’s the mystery of the town’s statues, sneaking about on some mission of their own, whenever people aren’t looking.
With torch-bearing vigilantes patrolling the streets, black-hooded figures in the graveyard, a werewolf stalking the woods, and statues popping out at people everywhere, events force the Alumières into reluctant action.
Can there really be a perfectly rational explanation for this much mayhem?
Customer Reviews
A fun, wild ride.
3.5 stars, rounding up because I had fun reading this one!
Is this a cozy mystery? I've never read one, so this might be my first foray into the genre. The hallmarks seem to be there - a small town, a cast of colorful characters, and, well, the requisite mystery, with a dash of feel-good atmosphere and a heaping helping of good humor.
The writing is clever and, at time, laugh-out-loud funny; Delaney's turn of phrase is witty and balancing on a knife's edge between dry and slapstick-y. There's something sly about the humor, yet good-natured. The writing drew me in and kept me engaged until the last page.
For me, the story came unravelled a bit when inspected too closely; for example, the characters didn't really grow or mature in any way, so we could say that it's a plot-driven novel, not a character-development one, except not a lot actually happened either. Yes, there are werewolves and living statues and romance aplenty, but the events are repetitive - lots of chases through the woods, playing of harmonicas, and well-meaning misunderstandings. I'd say read for the atmosphere and don't poke holes in the story, it won't withstand close scrutiny but will still be quite enjoyable if you just suspend disbelief.
And suspend I did when the time came to the scientific explanation for the goings-on. Delaney cleverly takes supernatural-seeming occurrences and turns them into science-based events, which I suspect is rather the point. However (and it may just be that I'm no good at quantum physics, which I'm not) the scientific explanations didn't make any sense to me; they seemed an afterthought. In a tale that pointedly replaces the supernatural with science, the science should be strong, no?
Regardless of the weaknesses of this book, I really did enjoy reading it, and would check out other works from Delaney again. Thanks to Book Sirens for the copy!
A cozy and fun supernatural mystery
If Alexander McCall Smith and Terry Pratchett had ever opened a bookstore together, they would absolutely stock The Squared Circle. This book is by turns a satirical take on rural British life, a cozy supernatural mystery, a touching rom-com, and a poignant character study. With a werewolf mystery and a two-headed calf.
I read this book voraciously- actually started going to bed at a reasonable hour so I could get a chapter or two in every night! Even the characters who are fairly stock (the nosy old lady, the couples who each think the person they love isn’t interested in them, the Nice Witch and the Grumpy Witch) are well-written.
I received an advance review copy of this book for free, and am leaving this review voluntarily and gladly. I quite enjoyed it, and heartily recommend it.