Yes the children are just that– they’re only 11 after all– but there’s nothing juvenile about Lawson’s writing. Had I been shelving this at a library I’d have a copy in both the children’s reading room and the young adult, or teens, stacks as well. Nooks & Crannies is categorized as middle-grade, but like I’ve said so many times before I’d like to dispute that this is not just kiddie lit. The narrative here is descriptive and is storybook-esque, it’s a little quaint, and entirely timeless. The tone is more on the serious side, this isn’t a cheeky satire like Horton Halfpott and while there is humor, it’s more subdued than in Robin Stevens’s Murder Most Unladylike: Wells & Wong Detective Agency series.
This is a very British, very finely written mystery. The candle flame offered no warmth but lent a lingering scent of sweetness to her personal area that saved it from feeling unbearably cold in spirit.
The only luxury present was half an inch of honey candle perched on a jam jar lid next to Tabitha’s sleeping mattress, which was made of old sofa padding. Her crawl space was an assembly of slanting ceiling, an uneven floor, and one tiny square window.
Our protagonist is bright and inquisitive Tabitha Crum and her only friend a cute little mouse named Pemberley spend their days shut up in her dingy attic bedroom when they’re not reading Inspector Percival Pensive mystery novels or doing the endless chores assigned by her brash parents. In 1907 Six eleven-year-olds are plucked out of their normal routines in London when they’re invited to spend the weekend at the reclusive and most famously charitable Countess Of Windermere’s sprawling manor in the countryside.
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