The Tale of Hawthorne House

This book is seriously cute. It’s part of a series from Susan Wittig Albert, who writes mystery novels for women. I’m not sure what those particular novels entail, as I’ve never read one. I’m very anal when it comes to series (this is all-inclusive to all forms of media and entertainment) and I have this inability to read or watch anything that belongs to a series out of order. And since the very first ever China Bayles mystery has never been in the library when I was there, I’ve never read any of them. But we can talk about my ridiculous anal tendencies later, how about.

This series, The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter, is fairly new so I snatch them off those freebie shelves every time I see a new one. It combines mystery and historical fiction. It’s about Beatrix Potter when she was unmarried and writing all of her “little books.” (If you don’t know who Beatrix Potter is, I recommend you stop reading now. The remainder of what I have to say will be completely useless to you.) Beatrix has bought a farm in the English countryside and loves her independent life, the villagers, and the animals that surround her. Every once in a while a handy little mystery arrives in the village for “that Potter woman” to solve.

The reason these books are so fun is that they are written in the style that Beatrix Potter wrote her own books, just with more pages and thicker plot lines. There’s two major ways the author does this: first, she continues to refer back to the reader with secret little winks and nods, making us a co-conspirator in the whole thing. We are nearly omniscient because we see the whole mysterious incident occur from the beginning. To be kind, she saves a teeny little plot twist for the very end just to surprise us. It’s always completely out of the blue, which is nice for those of us who don’t like mysteries because we always figure them out by the end.

The other (and most awesome) way Albert mimics Potter is by including the animals in on the fun. The animals in the village are (of course) the only ones who really know what’s going on, and we listen to their conversations with each other. There’s almost always a secondary mystery going on that is only about the animals, and is most often an elaboration on one of Beatrix’s stories, as in, the “true” story of Jemima Puddle-duck. It’s hilarious, hokey, and adorable.

Reading these books is like watching one of those PG Disney movies. You know what I’m talking about- the kind that stars Tim Allen or John Travolta, doesn’t necessarily have that interesting of a plot, but the few one-liners and funny situations make it enjoyable enough to watch. That’s what I call these Cottage Tales- they are an interesting and funny way to entertain yourself for a while. When you’re done, you’re very glad you’ve spend your time on them. They are, however, much more brainy than those lame Disney movies. The author captured Potter’s literary nuances perfectly and really did her research into her life. Many of the characters are real people who interacted with Beatrix in her younger days, whose attitudes and influences are taken directly from her journals. All in all, totally enjoyable. So next time your family is watching the annoying Disney flick where Danny DeVito gets attacked by porcupines, if you want to feel intellectually superior just read through this book instead. You’ll probably enjoy it.