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The House of Seven Mabels (Jane Jeffry Mysteries, No. 13)
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Manufacturer: Avon Books
Author: Jill Churchill
Publisher: Avon Books
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $7.99
You Save: $ ( % )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Avon Books
Author: Jill Churchill
Publisher: Avon Books
Average Customer Rating:
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The House of Seven Mabels (Jane Jeffry Mysteries, No. 13) Description
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780380804924
ISBN: 0380804921
Label: Avon Books
Manufacturer: Avon Books
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2003-05-01
Publisher: Avon Books
Product Release Date: 2003-04-29
Studio: Avon Books
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780380804924
ISBN: 0380804921
Label: Avon Books
Manufacturer: Avon Books
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2003-05-01
Publisher: Avon Books
Product Release Date: 2003-04-29
Studio: Avon Books
Editorial Review of The House of Seven Mabels (Jane Jeffry Mysteries, No. 13)
"Homemaking" is about to take on a whole new meaning for Jane Jeffry, now that she's agreed to help the prosperously divorced Bitsy Burnside restore and redecorate a decrepit old neighborhood mansion. Bitsy's decision to employ an almost all-woman crew has prompted Jane's quick-witted best bud Shelley Nowack to dub the project, "the House of Seven Mabels" -- but it's also engendered some nasty ill will.
And when what begins as a series of anonymous, mean-spirited "pranks" ends up leaving one of the workwomen lying dead at the foot of a staircase, Jane and Shelley decide to try and nail the assassin. But the more Jane saws away at the truth, the more it appears that she may be painting herself into a corner, leaving herself no exit if a crafty killer decides to make Jane Jeffry the next demolition project.
Customer Reviews of The House of Seven Mabels (Jane Jeffry Mysteries, No. 13)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Murder Book Most Foul
Review: I came across this book at a sale; after reading the first few chapters, I checked Amazon and was disappointed to find that it was still in print. Jane seems like a fifties' holdover, and the descriptions of the many meals and snacks are simply tedious. The worst aspect of this book isn't even the shoddy editing--it's the tone. The anti-feminist take here is appalling.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Fun Foot-Dragging Captures & Conquers
Review: Character crankiness captures the reader as it carries through funny, foot-dragging dialogues, first featuring Jane Jeffry in soliloquy, then adding Shelley's two-cent counterpoint over coffee.
Any awareness of a reality beyond reading melts like table butter, spreading into conversations at a gourmet luncheon business meeting. Jane and Shelley had skeptically agreed to join a couple hardcore feminists to discuss participation in a construction venture. As the women try to lure Jane & Shelley into their mad project of remodeling and decorating a dilapidated mansion, the reader's taste buds are bated by Jane's descriptions of luncheon plate contents towering toward culinary pinnacles.
Churchill has an uncanny ability to write with such a flowing, lighthearted ease that her plots and characters (even when shrouded in the miasma of moodiness) skip along merrily, just two suburban housewives dining casually around danger, or shopping across a stage.
Having read some of the Amazon reviews on this book, I was ready to chuckle at Jane's sour milk mood expressing itself entertainingly through satiric sneers against certain sub-cultural agendas which prodded the sore spots in Jane's contemplations of an "empty nest" coming soon.
It doesn't take a brain-iac to catch the depth being deftly woven through themes rising crisply from the novel's title, as they surge subtly through the first few pages of Jane's cranky anticipations of adjustment to diminishing motherhood; tying into Shelley's car screeching into her driveway (seeming on two wheels); then pausing over the posh lunch with the feminists.
Jane isn't spitefully bashing hardcore feminism in this novel. She's understandably reacting viscerally to the contrast between her life passages and the pedestals which some personalities seem to have the privilege to preen and prod upon.
Churchill's style is sneaky, subtle and smooth. Love the continued slow-perk sharing of daily routines between Jane and Shelley, two friends whose personalities should clash, clamor, and clang. Instead this unlikely pair is entertained more than irritated by the other's foibles as they saunter through simple activities, or argue over committing to overwhelming projects which many women would die for but don't have the freedom, opportunities, or time to enjoy (be hired as decorators in a remodel of an old mansion? Yes!).
Churchill continues to capture with her toe-tapping of terribly touchy issues, lightly exposing the barefoot essence of pros and cons, without kicking the door down with her personal bias, a bias which is entertainingly clarified with humor through the sarcastic snips and snide asides written gracefully enough to offer no offense to un-invested readers, whatever his/her political-social prejudice.
Yet someone in the story was offended enough by something to find a cause to kill.
The way Churchill deals with hard-core feminism reminds me of a passage in Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED in which Dagney Taggert pauses in temporary terror over tangible concerns, as she suddenly realizes that women don't run railroads. Then she recalls that she has been, in reality, running her father's industrial empire; her brother, as President, has always been a figurehead fool. Her panic discounted in a heartbeat of deduction, Dagney spits, "To hell with that," instantly emerging beyond all concerns about her gender, satisfied to C.E.O behind the scenes.
At the point of dealing most directly with this issue in Mabels, Jane asks a couple of the women carpenters if they had trouble working in a male dominated industry, to which they replied that once a contractor saw their impressive portfolios, the gender question was simply released; respect and need for competence took precedence.
The seven Mabels caricatures move through the plot in well drawn style, fleshed-out into a Norman Rockwell style of living types. The reading is easy, relaxing, and involving; the themes have depth without investing in irritating pushes toward political agendas; the mystery is suspenseful without going overboard, trying too hard to outdo the ultimate in convolutions in the genre.
Refreshing, delightful, insightful, almost as good as a simple, satisfying life, Churchill's seven Mabels paint every day reality into letters on a page, without once slipping on a banana peel into a boring passage of prose.
How does she do this; how does Jill Churchill make depth and complexity look so simple, fun, and easy!
With Awe,
Linda G. Shelnutt
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Awful Entry in an Uneven Series
Review: The Jane Jeffrey series can be pretty good--and it can positively stink. This entry is a clunker. I guess I keep reading the series for the prospect of a good book coming along; every once in a while one does. Churchill really needs to stop bragging about her parents in the diplomatic corps, and I can definitely do without her incessant snarky comments about her daughter (in contrast to her huge love for her apparently saintly sons). She also needs a better editor. Almost every dialog bit in this series begins with Shelley saying, "Jane,--" or Jane saying, "Shelley, --" This book was particularly grating in its gratuitous (and passe) attack on feminism, which Churchill apparently regards as a huge farce, as she does *every* social concern. Give the woman a t.v. set and a bag of chips and she's happy! Jane Jeffrey is more trailer park than she knows.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: disappointing entry in this series
Review: This is definitely the weakest entry in this series. If you're a fan, you'll read it, but be prepared to be disappointed. The story is weak and formulaic, the mystery is contrived, the characters don't seem as likable as before. Even the title seems to be trying too hard. Hopefully, if this series continues, the next entry won't be such a paint-by-number effort.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Not Her Best
Review: A typical book in this series, with Jane and Shelley occupying their time by solving a mystery.
Review Summary: Murder Book Most Foul
Review: I came across this book at a sale; after reading the first few chapters, I checked Amazon and was disappointed to find that it was still in print. Jane seems like a fifties' holdover, and the descriptions of the many meals and snacks are simply tedious. The worst aspect of this book isn't even the shoddy editing--it's the tone. The anti-feminist take here is appalling.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Fun Foot-Dragging Captures & Conquers
Review: Character crankiness captures the reader as it carries through funny, foot-dragging dialogues, first featuring Jane Jeffry in soliloquy, then adding Shelley's two-cent counterpoint over coffee.
Any awareness of a reality beyond reading melts like table butter, spreading into conversations at a gourmet luncheon business meeting. Jane and Shelley had skeptically agreed to join a couple hardcore feminists to discuss participation in a construction venture. As the women try to lure Jane & Shelley into their mad project of remodeling and decorating a dilapidated mansion, the reader's taste buds are bated by Jane's descriptions of luncheon plate contents towering toward culinary pinnacles.
Churchill has an uncanny ability to write with such a flowing, lighthearted ease that her plots and characters (even when shrouded in the miasma of moodiness) skip along merrily, just two suburban housewives dining casually around danger, or shopping across a stage.
Having read some of the Amazon reviews on this book, I was ready to chuckle at Jane's sour milk mood expressing itself entertainingly through satiric sneers against certain sub-cultural agendas which prodded the sore spots in Jane's contemplations of an "empty nest" coming soon.
It doesn't take a brain-iac to catch the depth being deftly woven through themes rising crisply from the novel's title, as they surge subtly through the first few pages of Jane's cranky anticipations of adjustment to diminishing motherhood; tying into Shelley's car screeching into her driveway (seeming on two wheels); then pausing over the posh lunch with the feminists.
Jane isn't spitefully bashing hardcore feminism in this novel. She's understandably reacting viscerally to the contrast between her life passages and the pedestals which some personalities seem to have the privilege to preen and prod upon.
Churchill's style is sneaky, subtle and smooth. Love the continued slow-perk sharing of daily routines between Jane and Shelley, two friends whose personalities should clash, clamor, and clang. Instead this unlikely pair is entertained more than irritated by the other's foibles as they saunter through simple activities, or argue over committing to overwhelming projects which many women would die for but don't have the freedom, opportunities, or time to enjoy (be hired as decorators in a remodel of an old mansion? Yes!).
Churchill continues to capture with her toe-tapping of terribly touchy issues, lightly exposing the barefoot essence of pros and cons, without kicking the door down with her personal bias, a bias which is entertainingly clarified with humor through the sarcastic snips and snide asides written gracefully enough to offer no offense to un-invested readers, whatever his/her political-social prejudice.
Yet someone in the story was offended enough by something to find a cause to kill.
The way Churchill deals with hard-core feminism reminds me of a passage in Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED in which Dagney Taggert pauses in temporary terror over tangible concerns, as she suddenly realizes that women don't run railroads. Then she recalls that she has been, in reality, running her father's industrial empire; her brother, as President, has always been a figurehead fool. Her panic discounted in a heartbeat of deduction, Dagney spits, "To hell with that," instantly emerging beyond all concerns about her gender, satisfied to C.E.O behind the scenes.
At the point of dealing most directly with this issue in Mabels, Jane asks a couple of the women carpenters if they had trouble working in a male dominated industry, to which they replied that once a contractor saw their impressive portfolios, the gender question was simply released; respect and need for competence took precedence.
The seven Mabels caricatures move through the plot in well drawn style, fleshed-out into a Norman Rockwell style of living types. The reading is easy, relaxing, and involving; the themes have depth without investing in irritating pushes toward political agendas; the mystery is suspenseful without going overboard, trying too hard to outdo the ultimate in convolutions in the genre.
Refreshing, delightful, insightful, almost as good as a simple, satisfying life, Churchill's seven Mabels paint every day reality into letters on a page, without once slipping on a banana peel into a boring passage of prose.
How does she do this; how does Jill Churchill make depth and complexity look so simple, fun, and easy!
With Awe,
Linda G. Shelnutt
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Awful Entry in an Uneven Series
Review: The Jane Jeffrey series can be pretty good--and it can positively stink. This entry is a clunker. I guess I keep reading the series for the prospect of a good book coming along; every once in a while one does. Churchill really needs to stop bragging about her parents in the diplomatic corps, and I can definitely do without her incessant snarky comments about her daughter (in contrast to her huge love for her apparently saintly sons). She also needs a better editor. Almost every dialog bit in this series begins with Shelley saying, "Jane,--" or Jane saying, "Shelley, --" This book was particularly grating in its gratuitous (and passe) attack on feminism, which Churchill apparently regards as a huge farce, as she does *every* social concern. Give the woman a t.v. set and a bag of chips and she's happy! Jane Jeffrey is more trailer park than she knows.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: disappointing entry in this series
Review: This is definitely the weakest entry in this series. If you're a fan, you'll read it, but be prepared to be disappointed. The story is weak and formulaic, the mystery is contrived, the characters don't seem as likable as before. Even the title seems to be trying too hard. Hopefully, if this series continues, the next entry won't be such a paint-by-number effort.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Not Her Best
Review: A typical book in this series, with Jane and Shelley occupying their time by solving a mystery.
However, while there were a lot of suspects, the ending came way too quickly, in about two paragraphs. And the confrontation only lasted about two sentences.
Definitely not the best in this usually entertaining series.