I Am Half-Sick of Shadows: A Flavia de Luce Novel

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows is the fourth book in Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mystery series. I have read the first three books in this series, and I was excited to find out what was going to happen to Flavia in this book.Flavia de Luce is a precocious young girl who lives with her father and two older sisters in Buckshaw, a crumbling manor house near the village of Bishop’s Lacy. It is the Christmas season, and Flavia’s father has rented out Buckshaw to a film company. Flavia is thrilled about this turn of events, and is even more pleased when Phyllis, the aging actress who is starring in the movie, pays attention to her.Needless to say, it is quite distressing when Phyllis is found murdered immediately after a theatrical performance attended by most of the village. When a blizzard traps everyone in Buckshaw, Flavia comes to the terrible conclusion that there is a murderer amongst the guests!Flavia has a strong personality, and it seems like people either love her or find her obnoxious. I am absolutely enchanted by Flavia. I tend to listen to the Audible editions of her books because narrator Justine Eyre brings Flavia to life with a subtlety sly charm. Flavia is astute, and she is prone to witty asides. This makes her appear much older than eleven years old, but there are parts of the book where Flavia seems exceptionally vulnerable, and very much like the young girl she is supposed to be.This was a satisfying mystery. Unlike the previous three books that had Flavia gallivanting about the countryside, she is mostly confined to Buckshaw for this book. There is a nice mix of new characters to balance out appearances from series regulars like Dogger, the butler/gardener/handyman, as well as Flavia’s two sisters. It was interesting to see “pop culture” (movie star glamour) converge with Flavia’s world of staid gentility (not to mention the genteel poverty).I would recommend I Am Half-Sick of Shadows. I would suggest reading the series in order. Flavia is an absolute delight, and as much as I enjoy the sleuthing, I would be just as happy reading about Flavia’s everyday adventures. I already own the next couple of books in this series, but I have been rationing them out; this is one series I do not want to get to the end of!

Flavia is brewing a sticky goo called birdlime. She half-believes she'll be able to snare Father Christmas when he climbs down the chimney at Buckshaw Manor on Christmas Day at Midnight.In this, the fourth book in the wonderful Flavia de Luce mystery series, we find our young chemist/sleuth snowed in with her family and half of the population of Bishop's Lacey during a storm. Since other reviewers here have written about the reason for everyone being at Buckshaw Manor, I don't think I can add anything more worth reading to what's already been said. Suffice it to say, this is a story not unlike an Agatha Christie "Who Done It."What always makes a Flavia book enjoyable for me is her interaction with her family. For example, this is typical of a conversation between her and her sister Daffy:"Daffy as always, was draped over a chair in the library, with Bleak House open on her knees.'Don't you ever get tired of that book?' I asked.'Certainly not!' she snapped. 'It's so like my own dismal life that I can't tell the difference between reading and not reading.''Then why bother?' I asked.'Bug off,' she said. 'Go haunt someone else.'I decided to try a different approach.'You've got black bags under your eyes,' I said. 'Were you reading late last night, or does your conscience keep you awake over the despicable way you treat your little sister?''Despicable' was a word I'd been dying to use in a sentence ever since I'd heard Cynthia Richardson, the vicar's wife, fling it at Miss Cool, the village postmistress, in reference to the Royal Mail.'" - Flavia giving as good as she gets.There's so much enjoyment to be found between the covers of I AM HALF-SICK of SHADOWS, but if you haven't read the other three books in the Flavia de Luce Mystery Series by Alan Bradley, I strongly urge you to begin with THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE. You'll meet Flavia and instantly fall in love with her. Highly recommended - 5 BIG STARS.

Okay I love Flavia de Luce. Simple. Flavia is a delicious character. Having located her Uncle Tar's old chemistry lab in their rambling British manor, Flavia has found one of her passions--chemistry. Flavia's endless and countless passions keep her busy and in trouble. The holiday season is upon her and Flavia is creating Birdlime (a sticky chemical concoction)to trap Santa with when he descends one of the manor's many chimneys.Suddenly a group of movie actors, actresses, and crew descend on the manor to shoot a movie. Flavia is in the midst of it all--watching accidents happen, visiting the movie's star actress while the star bathes and being on the scene (or lurking behind the scene) when anything exciting happens.The movie star, Phyllis Wyvern creates drama on and off the stage and is found murdered the night of a charity performance of scenes from "Romeo and Juliet" at the manor. A heavy blizzard has sealed off the manor from the town. (Isn't that an essential element of cool British mysteries? :P) The townspeople who came to the performance can't leave and no one can come in...and Flavia is in her element loving every moment.Flavia is watching the assorted romances blooming around her sister, the gossip and intrigue between the crew and the actors and trying to solve the murder of Phyllis Wyvern at the same time. Oh yes and don't forget Flavia is creating her birdlime and tryng to save the family manor from bankruptcy.The way Alan Bradley writes is poetic and so completely captures the essence of a really great little girl, who is not all sugar and spice and everything nice. Reading about Flavia is like sitting down with a brother or sister as they share the adventures of their most precocious daughter.

In the fourth Flavia de Luce story we find our heroine, eleven-year-old Flavia, involved in another murder mystery and one which takes place in Buckshaw, the family home. Due to the continuing parlous state of the family’s finances, Colonel de Luce has reluctantly agreed to rent out Buckshaw to a film company who are delighted by the decaying beauty of the de Luce family home, and when the cast arrive Flavia and her older sisters are thrown into a world of excitement and delicious anticipation - after all, anything might happen. And, of course, it does! Cut off from the outside world by a prodigious fall of snow, Buckshaw is soon home to the scene of a gruesome murder, and as no one could have entered the building since the onslaught of the snowstorm, it means that someone in the house must be responsible for the murder. But who?Goodness knows why I decided to read this Christmas-themed story in a heat-wave of almost 40 degrees - but perhaps I needed cooling down. Whatever the reason, I enjoyed following the adventures of the precocious and irrepressible Flavia who, with her chemical experiments, sets out to discover not just the perpetrator of the crime but who also endeavours to discover proof of the existence of Father Christmas. Fun downtime reading.

With the family finances in their usual perilous position, Flavia's father has given over Buckshaw to a film crew at Christmas. Previously wrapped up in plans to trap Father Christmas, Flavia turns her attention to the newcomers and befriends the famous actress, Phyllis Wyvern.The vicar managed to convince Phyllis to give a performance of "Romeo and Juliet," for the benefit of the Church roof and, later that night, Flavia discovers the actresses dead body and, of course, sets out to discover the murderer with virtually the entire local population snowed in under the family battlements.It was odd to have all of the story under the roof of Buckshaw and not have Flavia, astride her trusty bicycle, heading out all over the countryside. Like many such series books, the fun in this one is in the characters. Although I am not usually a fan of mysteries with precocious children, I do like Flavia, her constant preoccupation with chemistry and her independent spirit. Odd to read a Christmas mystery in summer, so this may be one I wish to revisit at a more appropriate time of year.

This is the fourth in the Flavia de Luce series, another wonderfully endearing "cozy mystery" set "somewhere" in England in the 1950s. I absolutely love this series, they're the perfect antidote to the stresses of modern life with one of the most captivating heroines in the shape of 11 year old Flavia.It's getting close to Christmas and the de Luce family finances are still in a perilous state so the Colonel reluctantly agrees to rent out Buckshaw to a film crew. The glamorous film star Phyllis Wyvern has agreed to perform a scene from Shakespeare in order to raise funds for the church roof, so the local villagers swarm to Buckshaw to see the leading lady in action. Blizzards conspire to keep the audience captive overnight but tis not the season to be jolly as a body is discovered and, with so many suspects, Inspector Hewitt needs all the help he can get to find the killer. Of course, Flavia, our amateur sleuth, is on hand to ferret out the culprit but she is already occupied with proving Santa's existence and concocting some splendiferous fireworks.If you are already a fan of Flavia, you will love this seasonal story as you are immediately transported into the snowbound world of Buckshaw and Bishop's Lacey. Flavia is as irrepressible as ever but she still has that cloud of sadness, the loss of her mother and her sisters' indifference/cruelty weigh heavily on her. Some much needed distraction comes with the arrival of the film crew and the glamour of the silver screen. There are a lot of new characters in this relatively short book but they really come to life for the reader, even the one who dies quite soon!Overall, a pleasure to read, an ideal Christmas treat which leaves me longing for the next instalment in Flavia's adventures, Seeds of Antiquity, hopefully out in 2012.

I LOVED this book. It took a while to get used to Flavia’s incredibly idiosyncratic voice and turn of phrase, but once I did, it was the best thing about the book. It reminded me of how the Famous Five spoke to each other, but smarter! This is the first book I've read in the series. If I’d started the series at book 1, I’m sure I would have already been at home with her voice and not needed this “adjustment time”. That said, this book worked as a stand-alone, I fell in love with Flavia and by the end was incredibly sorry it was all over.The mystery element of the story was good, if nothing new (all the suspects trapped in a big house because of unexpected heavy snow… we’ve never seen that before!). The setting was excellent and the set up interesting. The film crew and actors brought some old Hollywood glamour to the story. But the star of the show is Flavia, her love of chemistry and her rather “inventive” experiments. These include an attempt to prove the existence of Father Christmas by covering the chimney stacks in bird lime in the hope of trapping him there! Brilliant!

What a delightful series!. 11 year old Flavia de Luce, chemistry genius and enfant terrible. She lives with her father and sisters in n enormous country estate which is continuously under threat as her father cannot maintain it. Bodies and blood but not in the depressing sex and serial-killer manner of current fiction. Although Flavia is scarily intelligent, she also has a childish innocence (she is not sure about about the existence of Santa Claus and has come up with a wonderful concoction to trap him in a chimney), this may not be creditable for today's 11 year old but this is 1950. There is a great cast of characters including Dogger the general factotum, who is extremely well educated and suffers from post traumatic stress following incarceration in a POW camp, the vicar's dreadful wife who spanked Flavia with a hymn book (wouldn't happen today!), Inspecter Hewitt and lovely wife Antigone (much admired by Flavia) and of course Flavia's sisters who never lose an opportunity to put her down.