Customer Reviews

Bridesmaids Revisited

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With her family away on vacation, interior decorator Ellie Haskell planned to redo their home. However, a letter from Rosemary Maywood shakes Ellie to her inner core. Rosemary claims that she is in contact with Ellie's deceased grandmother Sophia who desperately needs to speak with her. Rosemary, along with Thora and Jane, were called the bridesmaids when Ellie was a child, but no one would explain why they were nicknamed as such.

Feeling a bit foolish, Ellie travels to see Rosemary to learn what the woman is talking about. Her housekeeper Mrs. Malloy insists on coming too. Ellie and Mrs. Malloy go the Knells where she learns that a developer plans to turn the village into a theme park because he was mistreated as a youth. As she begins to unravel what the three bridesmaids want to tell her, Ellie begins investigating a half of a century old murder that could end up with a present day homicide, namely Ellie.

BRIDESMAID REVISITED is an interesting tale that reads like a well-written gothic who-done-it. The main characters are fully developed and the support cast brings the brooding atmosphere of the Knells to life. The mystery is humorously and enjoyably weird as expected from a Dorothy Cannel tale.

Harriet Klausner

Although I seldom read Gothics anymore, I read my share of them when I was young. Ms. Cannell serves up the standards: deep dark family secrets (one was easy to guess, but the others took me completely by surprise), great wrongs from the past that need to be set right, people being killed because they either KNOW TOO MUCH or could unwittingly REVEAL ALL. She didn't leave out the less-than-warm welcome the villagers give the innocent heroine. There's a seance! There's a governess who wanted her master who had the invalid wife. Ellie's life is mysteriously threatened. There's even a certain architectural feature no Gothic romance should be without. Of course, Ellie isn't the usual Gothic heroine because she's a wife and mother, but our author handles this trifling problem by packing Bentley and the kiddies off to camp. Mrs. Malloy and the faithful Tobias are similarly disposed of, leaving poor Ellie on her own. To trust or not to trust? Not only is that the question, but the answer could mean life or death to Ellie. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that it's the best spoof of Gothics since Jane Austen's NORTHANGER ABBEY, but it's certainly a lot of fun. RANDOM COMMENTS: If you take 100 years as the human life span, then ages 34 through 65 are the middle, so yes, you are middle aged if you're in your forties (I will be 46 this year). Laughed at Mrs. Malloy's reaction to the reason Ellie has never spoken of her maternal grandmother. The chapter decorations are pretty. For someone who reads Gothics, Ellie took a bit long to become suspicious. I'd never heard the phrase "a friend of Dorothy" before -- what a polite way to explain. My instinctive reaction to the mentions of meat puddings and fish pie was YUCK! Then I remembered the teasing I gave a friend who refused to try chicken pot pie because "pies are dessert!" and decided to keep an open mind. With all the revelations in this book, Ellie and her kin are going to have to rethink their precise degree of relationship. I, for one, hope that Ms. Cannell doesn't fail to give us vain Vanessa's reaction in the next book. I'm sorry that Yan Nascimbene chose to give us a dustjacket illustration that's in keeping with the punny title. This book cries out for a traditional Gothic cover, preferably a nightgowned Ellie fleeing the Old Rectory in the pitch dark; with one window mysteriously lit in the forbidding house.

No spoilers here! Dorothy Cannell is a good story teller and certainly has a great sense of humor. With this 11th novel in the Ellie Haskell series, both traits come shinning through. Ellis in contacted by three ladies from out of her past that state her grandmother wants to contact her. Since Ellie's grandmother is long dead, this is of course a problem. Ellie and her ever present quirky house keeper set out for a visit and of course end up in a typical Gothic Setting with three very odd ladies. I it is sort of difficult to do much plot outlinging with Ms. Cannell's books as there are plots and subplots scattered throughout the work. To talk much about one leaves openings to spoil another for the reader. I did feel that the over all plot of this work was weaker than in some of the author's other works and, as another reviewer has pointed out, the book, at times, seemed rather rushed. That is okay though. I read these books more for the humor and characters than I do the story and the author has delivered again with this one. If you are looking for a fast, one evening read, that is rather enjoyable, then this one is for you.

Fun and Spooky. I love Dorothy Cannell books, because they are, well, fun and silly. And sometimes spooky. And always intelligent. Some of the best character development around (and boy, does she develop some characters!)

I hate reviews that discuss the whole plot, with inner meanings and story disclosures, so I'll just say, Buy it. Read it. Read any of the series, I can't think of a single 'best'.

Here's something - funnier than Evanovich, and a lot cleaner; still, has more realistic bedroom scenes. Funny ones.

With the witty title, strong opening and some occasionally inspired dialogue, I really expected the best from my first chapter or two of this cozy mystery. But the tale quickly disintegrates into a soup with too many contrasting ingredients, way too much seasoning, and not enough simmering. Too many characters are introduced but never fully developed, the lovely British setting is not fully integrated, the gardens and interesting or fabulous homes are barely sketched in - but the action can only be described as willy nilly and inplausible. This would have been a lovely book for a location map, and some charming English country scenes, and a lot more characterization. I was disappointed and wondered if this book had been rushed to publication.

This mystery is also a farce that pokes fun at a lot of conventional ingredients of gothic mysteries -- strange villagers, an old house straight out of Clue, missionaries in the Belgian Congo, the lifelong household servants, old trunks in attics, and surly gardeners. Cannell makes fun of all these conventions even as she uses them in her mystery -- and has her detective, Ellie Haskell, reading an old gothic novel (leatherbound, of course), that one of the other characters has given her.

THe mystery begins with a letter to Ellie from ROsemary, who was a friend of her grandmother's -- Ellie is asked to come visit because her grandmother has something to tell her -- only the grandmother died in the Congo many years ago. ROsemary is living in the Old Rectory with two other friend. These three friends had apparently been "bridesmaids" at her grandmother's wedding and that's why Ellie's deceased mother had called them the bridesmaids -- hence the book's title. Ellie hasn't seen them since childhood and decides to go see what this is about. Ellie's charwoman, Mrs. Malloy, decides to go along for the ride, but she'll be staying nearby with a childhood friend who is a cousin of a lifelong servant at the Old Rectory... you get the picture.

THere's a clue or a red herring about every paragraph, and lots of colorful characters and humor.

The pleasure of this book isn't so much in the clever plotting (which is why I only gave it 4 stars instead of 5) but in the madcap humor of the book and the many colorful characters. This was my first book by Cannell but it won't be my last. This book was great fun to read.

I loved this book! It's a fun cozy mystery with memorable, eccentric characters. I honestly didn't know until the end who the murderer was, and I had a lot of fun trying to figure it out.

Ellie Haskell, an interior designer, is happy to have some time to take care of some projects around the house while her husband takes their young children on a trip. Then, she suddenly receives a letter from some old friends of her grandmother's, whom she hasn't heard from in years. These friends, called "the bridesmaids" by Ellie's mother for reasons that Ellie never quite understood, insist that Ellie come to visit them because her grandmother wants to make contact with her. This is a shock to Ellie because she knows that her grandmother died while her own mother was a baby. It seems that the bridesmaids are determined to hold a seance because they think that Ellie's grandmother has something important to tell her from the grave. Ellie accepts their invitation with her housekeeper, Mrs. Malloy, in tow because she's anxious to avoid a visit from her ex-husband who recently contacted her with a sob story of his own. From the moment that Ellie sets foot in her grandmother's home town, she begins to learn things about her family that she never knew before. Her grandmother's unhappy marriage and sudden death at a fairly young age cast a long shadow over her family which may have led to the untimely death of Ellie's mother. Ellie must face the fact that her mother's death may not have been the accident that she believed it to be and contend with someone who may want her dead as well to keep the secrets of the past buried.

Although there are tragedies in Ellie's family history, the story is lightened by moments of humor. I particularly liked the gothic novel that Ellie starts reading; the plot description is a fun parody of other books in the genre. Overall, it's a satisfying mystery with a well-constructed plot and great characters. If you like cozies, you'll love this!

In the latest Dorothy Cannell mystery, Ellie Haskell is summoned by 3 of her grandmother's old friends to solve another family mystery. Another trio of bizarre characters join the cast, as each of the bridesmaids is just a little bit off. Cannell's mysteries are always alot of fun in addition to the mystery,and this one is no exception. Hopefully, the next novel will bring back the Flowers Detection Agency. I miss them.