It’s time! Are you in? This month, I’m going to be reading quite a few books published by Dean Street Press, the indie publisher devoted to finding and republishing good fiction and non-fiction. This is the starter post and where I’ll record all your reviews during the month. See this post for all the detail. Dean Street December is now over for 2022 but will be returning in 2023 – my round-up post with all the stats is here.

What should I do?

Read your book(s) and comment on this post with a link to your blog post, Goodreads review or other place where you’ve written about your read.

I will also read and review books during the month and add my own links; please also feel free to chat about those books and visit other people’s links during the month and afterwards.

What if I don’t have an online presence?

If you don’t post about your reading online but want to join in, please send in a short review via my Contact Form and I’ll post a digest of your offline reviews at the end of the month.

Ready to go?

Are you in? Link to this post in your reviews, comment here with them and use the hashtag #DeanStreetDecember on social media through the month!

THE STARTER AND SUMMARY POSTS

Here are people setting their intentions for the month!

Robin’s Reading Rambles

All the Vintage Ladies

Hopewell’s Library of Life (with a selection of her older reviews)

And a summary post from Staircase Wit

THE REVIEWS

Anderson, Verily – Spam Tomorrow

Bush, Christopher – Cut Throat

Bush, Christopher – Dancing Death

Bush, Christopher – Dead Man Twice

Bush, Christopher – The Case of the April Fools

Campbell, Alice – Water Weed

Clavering, Molly – Dear Hugo

Clavering, Molly – Mrs Lorimer’s Quiet Summer

Clavering, Molly – Near Neighbours

Clavering, Molly – Susan Settles Down

Clavering, Molly – Touch not the Nettle

Cowdroy, Joan A. – Murder of Lydia

Dalton, Moray – One by One they Disappeared

Fair, Elizabeth – A Winter Away

Fair, Elizabeth – Bramton Wick

Fair, Elizabeth – The Marble Staircase

Faviell, Francis – A Chelsea Concerto

Ferguson, Ruby – Apricot Sky

Flynn, Brian – Dead Opposite the Church

Flynn, Brian – Such Bright Disguises

Flynn, Brian – The Fortescue Candle

Flynn, Brian – The Orange Axe

Flynn, Brian – The Padded Door

Flynn, Brian – The Sharp Quillet

Flynn Brian – Tread Softly

Forster, Dayo – Reading the Ceiling

Gibbons, Stella – The Swiss Summer

Gibbons, Stella – The Woods in Winter

Kerby, Susan Alice – Miss Carter and the Ifrit

Langley Moore, Doris – All Done By Kindness

Nesbit, E. – The Lark

Oman, Carola – Nothing to Declare

  • Clara’s review (see bottom of this post)

Scarlett, Susan – Babbacombe’s

Scarlett, Susan – Clothes Pegs

Sharp, Margery – Fanfare for Tin Trumpets

Sharp, Margery – Rhododendron Pie

Sharp, Margery – The Foolish Gentlewoman

Smith, Dorothy Evelyn – Miss Plum and Miss Penny

Stevenson, D.E. – Charlotte Fairlie

Stevenson, D.E. – Five Windows

Stevenson, D.E. – Green Money

Stevenson, D.E. – Mrs Tim Flies Home

Stevenson, D.E. – Smouldering Fire

Stevenson, D.E. – Spring Magic

Stevenson, D.E. – The Fair Miss Fortune

Stevenson, D.E. – Vittoria Cottage

Thomson, Basil – Richardson Scores Again

Vivian, Francis – Darkling Death

Vivian, Francis – The Elusive Bowman

Vivian, Francis – The Ladies of Locksley

Vivian, Francis – The Laughing Dog

Vivian, Francis – The Singing Masons

Vivian, Francis – The Sleeping Island

Wentworth, Patricia – Dead or Alive

Wentworth, Patricia – The Black Cabinet

Wentworth, Patricia – The Blind Side

Wilenski, Marjorie – Table Two

Clara’s review of Carola Oman’s Nothing to Declare:

A cosy village life novel set during WW2

Was I reading Miss Read or Barbara Pym? I wondered, attempting to speed-read this book in a hurry, flummoxed by the large number of characters. I warmed to the central character Mary (‘Button’ to her friends), and realised you could completely miss the gentle humour by reading too fast, as the humour isn’t immediately obvious, being built around character and situation.

The village’s adaptation as the war begins in 1939 sounds deceptively low key and uneventful, yet Carola Oman, a historical biographer, is making a point, I think, of recording a moment in time and place: the home front efforts of the village ladies, as they pull together to organise diverse activities from knitting to trialling gas masks. Oman is also summarising the class changes that have taken place in the years since WW1, with Mary living happily and comfortably in a cottage furnished with antiques she has chosen, having left the big country house where she was born.

Mary goes to do her nursing training in 1939 on the same day and month as she previously began nursing training 20 years before in 1919. Friends and relations visit, trying her patience in various ways; Mary’s warmheartedness and good humour always wins out, lingering pleasantly in the reader’s memory.