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Type of bind: Paperback
EAN num: 9781847282934
ISBN number: 1847282938
Label: Lulu.com
Manufacturer: Lulu.com
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 200
Printing Date: February 07, 2007
Publishing house: Lulu.com
Age index: Young Adult
Sale Popularity Level: 1704251
Studio: Lulu.com
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Product Description:
12 year old Beatrice Beecham loves cookery. While her friends are blinded by bling and boys Beatrice scans her ever increasing volumes of Belchette's Encyclopaedia Gastronomica for a recipe to challenge her awesome culinary talents. But Beatrice's world is about to change. Fate will steer her family to the remote coastal town of Dorsal Finn. Yet like the ocean that washes into the bay, darkness lurks beneath the surface of this sleepy town. It is a place of secrets. Secrets that some want found, but most prefer to keep hidden. When Aunt Maud gives her an old cook book as a welcome gift Beatrice finds something surprising within its pages: a cry of help from the past. And a terrible portent for the present. Reviews: 'A very enjoyable read.' Henry Lord, Wizard Books. 'Warm and charming.' Alison Dougal, Puffin Children's Books. 50% of the royalty from this publication is donated to Comic Relief UK.
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Rated by buyers -
"Giddy Goodness", as wise Aunt Maude would say! I've find myself frequently using the phrase "Giddy Goodness", that Dave Jeffrey coined through his character Aunt Maude.
This is the second work I've read by Dave Jeffery. Whether you read his novel "Finding Jericho", which delivers an educational and serious message or whether reading his more light-hearted work as with "Beatrice Beecham's Fearsome Feast", he tells his stories with a unique whimsical style. I have yet to get through his novels without laughing out loud at least ten times not including chuckles and smiles in between.
In "Beatrice Beecham's Fearsome Feast", Beatrice and her family move to a small and cliquish coastal town called Dorsal Finn due to her father's job loss. There, they will live with Beatrice's seventy-seven year old and very wise Aunt Maude to help with her Chocolate Emporium.
Beatrice dreads the move but finds unexpected acceptance there with her new found friends the "Newshounds." Together, with Beatrice being the leader, they embark with two hundred year old clues to uncover secrets surrounding the sunken "Charlotte Elizabeth." From there the reader is lead on a journey of clues; I guessed the answers to some of them ahead of time and other times I didn't but the pointing path kept me enthralled throughout the story.
Beatrice is exceptionally intelligent, inquisitive, and forthright. She is also respectful of her family which is a refreshing attribute for a twelve year old protagonist. She is also a gifted cook which leads her to the fearsome feast.
The author, Dave Jeffery, is a gifted story-teller who knows how to develop sensible and quirky characters that we can laugh at without making fun of. The town librarian and historian, Agnes, comes to mind. She has a botched hearing aid and Jeffrey takes her dilemma into a wave of laughter for the reader. You will understand the "wave" pun when you meet Agnes in the story.
I liked this story. It is not only for young adults but for readers of all ages.
I was impressed that there was not one profane word throughout the story. The characters all had something to add and did so without vulgar enhancement. The author's clever wit shines to the last page. I give "Beatrice Beecham's Fearsome Feast" five solid stars.
Kathy Flanary Nelson
Rated by buyers -
Like a culinary masterpiece, I found Beatrice Beecham's Fearsome Feast to be extremely palatable indeed. The riddle-solving reminded me of the Three Investigators, while the exploration of secret passages was reminiscent of the Famous Five. And Aunt Maud's house, with its assortment of peculiar rooms, provided a pinch of Roald Dahl.
The story was exciting and certainly kept me gripped. I also greatly enjoyed the imaginary conversations that Beatrice had with Jamie Oliver and some of the other well-known British celebrity chefs. This is despite the fact that I'm not particularly into the cooking show genre or a big follower of any of those guys. The various plotlines (like the Fearsome Feast competition and the mystery of the Charlotte Elizabeth) were cleverly interweaved. Apart from the story, the characters are also engaging, especially Beatrice herself. The secondary characters are also quite well developed.
One of the few down sides for me was that the Epilogue was rather unsatisfactory and made the ending feel slightly untidy. On the whole, I prefer books to end with a sense of proper closure, although there should certainly be some scope for creating anticipation for the subsequent book in a series. Speaking of which, I look forward to sampling Beatrice Beecham's Fete of Fate, which has just come out.
The other thing that bothered me was the somewhat high number of typos, which were a little bit distracting. But I'm sure a good copy-editor can fix that. ;-)
All in all, I found this book to be simply delicious and recommend that everyone put it on their reading menu! Pukka! :-)
Rated by buyers -
This is a great book. Beatrice moves to the coast with her mom, dad, and little brother after her father loses his job. While there her mother's friend, Aunt Maud, gives her an old cookbook. From there the adventure begins. With her new found friends and her active imagination involving famous cooks, she sets off on a mystery that involves a past shipwreck, an interesting cooking contest, and many more twists and turns. This book is filled with colorful characters (you'll especially love Aunt Maud), a great adventure, and a surprise ending. I can't wait for more books from this author.
Rated by buyers -
When 12-year-old Beatrice Beecham is given an old cookbook that completely comes apart when it falls off her bed, she finds hidden treasures that whisk her and her friends into a dangerous mystery. The oldest and richest family in Dorsal Finn has a murderous secret, and the most powerful people in town are helping them keep it. With the help of adventurous friends and a quick-thinking librarian, Beatrice develops a theory, but the only way to prove her suspicions is to enter the Fearsome Feast contest and win an overnight stay at the mansion.
Can she do it? Not without a bounty of close calls, perilous consequences, and finding the right time and place to use her cookbook treasures, clues from a desperate matriarch long dead.
Beatrice Beecham is delightful, scrappy, and the most exciting thing that has happened in Dorsal Finn for a long time. Dave Jeffery has created a tale that's intelligent and fun from start to finish, and full of surprises. This is one romping adventure!
Rated by buyers -
What a wondrous beginning (after the dreadfully amateurish cover)! There's an exhilarating account of an ancient ship wreck, then we flash forward as an eccentric father who's lost his job, his wife, a younger brother absorbed in sci-fi technology and the brainy narrator who hears voices of--this is too brilliant for words--popular TV chefs make their way to the house of a strange aunt in the costal village of Dorsal Finn. This combination of traditional bedtime-story elements and contemporary references to cell phones, I-Pods, Star Wars and Harry Potter will make children (7 through early teens), their parents and even grandparents feel comfortably at home.
But there's adventure afoot: treasure with anagram clues, villains (including the notorious Chorley brothers), reenactment of an historic masque (shades of Edgar Allan Poe), a past murder uncovered and, last but not least, the "fearsome feast" in which entrants concoct hideous entrees (the one that can't be eaten by the notorious Vladimir Karlof wins). "A tale's not worth tellin' if it's not told right!" proclaims Aunt Maud. And this one abounds in treasures of its own. For example, the Aunt's little comments "...she's as reliable as a one handed alarm clock" and unobtrusive bits of psychological insight-- when Beatrice feels like a stranger in her new bedroom, Aunt Maud tells her about her own experience as a child in a strange bedroom when she was transported into the country during the bombing of London during World War II, "But I think the real reason I didn't want it to be mine. I was scared that if I accepted it then I would never see the world I knew ever again."
There are four very short surreal chapters from a second person point of view that may be confusing to young readers since we don't know who the "you" is and the cinematic ending seems unnecessarily complicated to me. But overall this is a great feast with course after course of satisfying dishes. It is the book as treasure hunt. Or like Aunt Maud would say, a story that "fills the coal scuttle."
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