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Tthis very funny and unputdownable novel is a sure winner from start to finish! To be enjoyed without moderation.' - 5 STARS
The community showed its appreciation of the removal of the boat by throwing a party for the salvage crew – it was a British operation with some German equipment and crew.Then Lord Inverkillen, Earl and head of the family, is found dead in mysterious circumstances. The inspector declares it an accident but Mrs MacBain, the head housekeeper, isn't so convinced. As no one is allowed in or out because of the illness, the residents of the house - both upstairs and downstairs - are the only suspects. With the Earl's own family too busy doing what can only be described as nothing, she decides to do some digging - in between chores, of course - and in doing so uncovers a whole host of long-hidden secrets, lies and betrayals that will alter the dynamics of the household for ever. But what would have narked me most of all if I were Scottish was that my country was here busted down to an away venue for a proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union. Which of these two polities was responsible for manufacturing the worst car known to humankind, Clarkson asked. Oh, obviously the Soviets, you reply. Have you ever tried to put a Lada through hairpin? Of course you haven’t, because the Queen Mary has a tighter turning circle. We were on the pier that morning,” remembered Donald Iain Kennedy in 2012. “We were supposed to [take off] half a million [pounds worth] of clams, shellfish and prawns on it, and we were all preparing to sling it off, and the next thing, she just went, right against the pier. The bulkhead gave way, the front part of the engine. The water just gushed in. Brand new Jeeps, and vans. They were all over the place. Gordon Donald made a song about it.” Huge thanks to Hodder & Stoughton, NetGalley and the author for providing an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the opinions expressed in this review are my own. Why must he always try to do things? He isn’t good at doing things. Doing Things is what servants are for.”
I found Loch Down Abbey in the mystery and thriller section and thought it sounded appealing - 1930s country house murder, but it’s not quite that and I didn’t find it particularly mysterious or thrilling. It is more an unraveling of family secrets than murder mystery and I found it hard to maintain my interest in a bunch of entitled aristos acting like children. I think it is intended as satire, but if so it passed me by. As a novel, however, it feels like it's trying to do too many things at once. First, there's the Downton-Abbey-esque setting, which IS pretty fun. Then there's an unexpected death in the family, so it's sort of a mystery. And then there's a pandemic, which gets shoe-horned in with lots of wink-wink, nudge-nudge references that people who have lived through 2020 will understand all too well. There was one particularly loud crash, but I just thought it was another thing that had gone wrong. There had been so much that night. I had never travelled that route before, in the middle of the Minch, in the middle of a force 10 gale. I just assumed the noises were all about the weather. A funny grandmother, very selfish children, and grandchildren, full of rumors and gossip. 6 children exploring an amazing Abbey and find its secrets. They search the house and find the hidden paths but, adults could not. More than 20 servants being less and less, to get the family mad. Beside me was an army sergeant and his wife. She was still in her night clothes. They had just run up without getting any layer of clothing on themselves. There was a stewardess. She was trying to look after a couple of kids. She kept her arms around the children, and tried to shelter them from the spray.
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There were four lifeboats on the boat. At least three were in the water. We were behind one of the lifeboats. The front boat had an outboard motor. We were being towed by the boat in front, in heavy seas. They headed the boat into the wind to prevent it capsizing, and that was all they could do. We were using the oars just to keep the boat stable. The book was only published in April, but it's already being developed into a TV series by Gigi Pritzker and Madison Wells Media. “We have thought about how to capture what has happened to us all in the last year and Beth has found a way through wit and empathy,” Pritzker said. “It was immediately evident that this incredibly witty book should be turned into a fun and entertaining television series that audiences will love. Beth is such an impressive writer, and person, and we are confident her book will capture a loyal and devoted fanbase. We cannot wait to read the sequel.” No one was on board,” reported the Herald Express on March 23. “The chief steward and an engineer had spent the night on board but left when they heard a rumble and the ship started to move.”
Then Lord Inverkillen, Earl and head of the family, is found dead in mysterious circumstances. The inspector declares it an accident but Mrs MacBain, the head housekeeper, isn't so convinced." Mr Little told The Oban Times then: “While no-one expected this to happen, it was an enlightening experience to be present and see for ourselves the magnificent manner in which our crew reacted to the situation.”There's a lot of characters to try and remember. Most of the family members aren't very likable and hardly any of them can do anything without their maids. The story is told from multiple perspectives but the sudden switches of perspective makes it a bit confusing. Filled with secrets, betrayals, lies and some humour, this is an enjoyable read. Royal residents of Loch Down Abbey are not very interested in being out or do something but, they always are busy. The head housekeeper, After fifteen years, didn’t understand what it was they did all day. They hardly can even be dressed, and of course, they don't know the way of the kitchen. On May 11 the giant floating crane Magnus III (chartered from Risdon Beasley of Southampton) arrived and lifted Loch Seaforth, moving her to the beach. She was patched and refloated, then left in tow for Troon where she was scrapped by the West of Scotland Shipbreaking Co. So ended the career of one of the best ships of the Stornoway service.” The Seaforth raised by crane. Photograph: the late Angus MacLean. In her later years, the gathered a reputation as accident-prone, after grounding in Mallaig harbour in 1965, then colliding with Mallaig pier the following year, and grounding on a reef at Kyle the next day. In 1971 she hit the island of Longay, off Broadford, and her passengers had to be rescued by a passing launch. It was built in 1905 for Scottish textile manufacturer, historian and landscape photographer Erskine Beveridge, one of the heirs to the estate of an internationally-renowned tableware manufacturer. After his passing in 1920, the property was inherited by his son George, who drowned in 1944 while attempting to make the crossing from North Uist to Vallay at high tide.
I remember, we were sitting in the committee room, we had our uniform on, we were in the pipe band, you see. I was sitting there and the rest of the boys were around, and this fellow came in and there was an empty seat, closer to the door than the seat I was in, and he approached me. There was no roll-on roll-off in those days! It was quite basic. You went to your berth, and woke up the next morning. I was quite tired. I thought I would get a decent night. Until then, though, there’s plenty of content from the presenting trio to enjoy elsewhere. You can watch Richard Hammond attempt to survive on a desert island in The Great Escapists, James May try his hand at cooking in James May: Oh Cook! and Jeremy Clarkson farming in... Jeremy Clarkson's Farm.The series will be produced by Pritzker, Rachel Shane and Amanda Morgan Palmer for Madison Wells along with Samantha Sprecher ( The Comedians), who is producing through her new company 3 Foot Toss. The cast of characters, with a clear DA inspiration, is sooooo huge that it took me quite a while to know who was who. All of them, save for a few exceptions, were pretty one-dimensional and defined by their rank in the family or the service and though that may have been the author’s intention to poke fun at the absurdities of the aristocracy and their relationship with their employees, it made me detached from all of them and not care about what was going on. Woo, this family has some scandalous secrets all right! Obviously, if you shove a bunch of non-observant and self-centered people together with nothing to do, most will do the wrong thing. Some of the secrets are obvious to an alert reader. Others should have been, and the clues are clear in hindsight. However, the hilarious conclusion was an unexpected surprise! I adored the ending of Loch Down Abbey, though some of the middle dragged a bit. 4 stars! However, there are so many characters it’s overwhelming and this means that apart from one or two they’re not well fleshed out and some seem to serve little purpose other than to baffle me. The style at times is somewhat ponderous especially at the beginning with over descriptions and explanation which slows the pace though this does improve in the second half which is much better than the first. The plot is really convoluted with so much going on it becomes bewildering and truthfully apart from recognition of our Covid reality I’m not that sure their pandemic actually adds much to the plot???? The chapters were also insanely long too, which I didn’t mind but shorter ones would have helped break it up a little. It was quite confusing at first with all the different characters and trying to get to grips with who was who. I also found I wasn’t truly invested in the story and it didn’t hook me as I thought it would. I kept on reading as once I was a certain way in, I wanted to know whodunnit and how it was going to end. It was funny reading how the family, used to the finer things in life, had to learn to adjust to a reduced staff, but the book as a whole just didn’t interest me that much.
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