LJ's beautiful books

By Nicholas Bowling Published by Chicken House 13 yrs and upwards I was excited to discover this YA novel as it is set in Tudor London with witch hunts, an asylum escape, Queen Elizabeth AND Mary Queen of Scots... not to mention it has a beautiful cover!  The story centres around orphaned Alyce, who is  trying to find help from John Dee of Queen Elizabeth's court  whilst being on the run from grim witch hunters and a ghostly Mary Queen of Scots. She picks up a companion, Solomon, along the way and is mysteriously followed by a raven wherever she goes... This YA novel is full of intrigue, surprise and imaginative descriptions of old London. The biggest surprise early on is that *Spoiler Alert* Queen Mary Stuart is a witch! I immediately thought of 'Antickes and Frets' by Susanna Clarke who has Mary cleverly perform subtle magic through her embroidery, but Bowling's Mary wants to conquer all using use dark magic and therefore is more of a 'villa...

By Alison Uttley Published by Puffin 9 yrs and upwards  I don't know how I missed this time-honoured British children's novel when I was younger, but I was excited to find it recently and read about Penelope's forays into Tudor times and whether she would meet Mary Queen of Scots!  There are some really beautiful descriptions of Penelope's home farm in Derbyshire, but I would have liked Penelope/the reader to have spent a little more time in the past - of which we get limited glimpses (which does add to the suspense, of course).  That Penelope dreams and daydreams and is often unwell reminds me of Marianne Dreams - another British children's classic. The way Penelope transfuses in and out of the past is an unusual and ethereal quality of this story, again written using lovely and haunting descriptions.  Most of Penelope's time in the past is spent directly contrasting the two farms in their different times, which would appeal to history...