Susan Wittig AlbertThe Tale of Hill Top Farm (The Cottage Tales of Beatrix P)

I freely confess to having always had a weakness for books with talking animals, beginning with my childhood reading of Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows. Both are still favorites, along with many others, and still read frequently. So I was predisposed to like this series and, thankfully, it did not disappoint. The author is familiar with the time period and the life of Beatrix Potter, and both are treated with respect and a welcome absence of anachronisms. The animals are charming and gracefully woven into these simple stories, while having a critical part to play. If I have a criticism, and it's a minor one, the narrative tone is a bit arch and sometimes has the effect of assuming the reader's agreement where that assumption might be a bit presumptuous. This minor point aside, I've read the entire series with pleasure more than once, and that, in my case, is high praise.

The blurb on the back cover of this novel has this information, "But when a villager dies unexpectedly, with allegations of foul play, Sawrey turns out to be anything but quiet....." I read this and expected to get a novel where Beatrix Potter would play a Miss Marple type character in a cozy English village setting with murders left and right. That book description sentence was constructed in such a way as to allow me to get the wrong impression. Thankfully the novel was a very good reading experience for me, but not until I had completely readjusted my expectations and accepted what was actually written.This is a very charming, warm, sensitive story of Beatrix Potter arriving in Sawrey village in the Lake District and her efforts to finalize the purchase of Hill Top Farm. There are many decisions which need to be made about the farm, especially since there is a farmer and his family in residence there and provisions must be thought out for how to handle the problem of everyone fitting into a too-small accommodation. There is not just one mystery in this story, there are many and Miss Potter is not the only person responsible for solving them. Instead of thinking about this novel as a murder mystery, think about it more as a very small community of people who are so closely connected in their lives by proximity to each other that they cannot help but all get involved in each other's business.I found this book very relaxing and soothing once I stopped expecting to be reading a conventional murder mystery. There are animals in the story which talk - but only to other animals, they cannot be heard by the humans. In actuality, the animals play a large part in helping relate information to the reader about any situation in progress because the animals tell each other what they have just seen or heard. In order to appreciate this style of storytelling a reader has to completely trust the author to make them feel comfortable and accepting of all the elements of the storytelling. Perhaps a reader of this series should be someone who so enjoys the stories of Beatrix Potter that they have no problems allowing mice, rabbits, hedgehogs, and cats and dogs to be vital characters in the book. I enjoyed it immensely because it was so different and it takes the English cozy style of novel to a level I had never experienced. It's almost a shame to classify it as a mystery, because of the expectation that category engenders with readers. Instead, read it for the lovely descriptions of the location, the perceptive insights into life in a tiny community, and the facts regarding the life of Beatrix Potter.

The Tale of Hill Top Farm is a wonderful book. I've read it twice and will reread it because it is like a delicious casserole on a wintery day __ real comfort food for the mind. I think that Susan Wittig Albert's books should appear on audio tape, or better still, video tape for children because she writes so grammatically and with a wonderful sense of style and vocabulary. Her work would be a great teacher of language skills. She uses her animals for life lessons, especially when she attaches the lessons to those of the inhabitants of the Sawreys. The description of the villages and of the architecture and the foods make me long for life in the early 1900s. In addition to all of the above good things, Albert does a splendid job of blending the facts with fiction of Beatrix Potter's life. Because of this book, I've bought all the rest in the series plus a good number of others about Beatrix Potter and the Lake District.

Delightful portrayal of a beloved author and an equally beloved landscape. In each book there is a main story involving a mystery and the development of Miss Potter as a person. A secondary story centers on the local animals, told in a whimsical style reminiscent of Miss Potter herself, which is a grand display of the author's skill. The first book deals with thefts in the village of Sawrey, among humans and animals. Miss Potter's keen observations solve one, and the village animals solve the other.

As a child, I was a huge Beatrix Potter fan. I even nagged my mother to change my name to Beatrix (she refused). I still remember the corner of our huge old public library where the "little books" were kept and I borrowed them again and again and again. As an adult, I've read numerous books about Beatrix Potter and introduced her and her books to my 3 children.When I learned that there was a series of mystery books featuring BP as a character, I was thrilled. First, I gave a few of the books to a relative who had visited Hill Top. Then I received the first book, the Tale of Hill Top Farm, as a gift from my husband. Since then, I've been addictively reading my way through the whole series.Susan Wittig Albert has achieved a really remarkable feat. Her Beatrix Potter character is exactly as I would have imagined her, along with the Lake District scenery and inhabitants. She manages to convey the world, thoughts, and conversations of the animals, who have their own society existing in parallel to that of the Big Folk, in a most Beatrix Potter-like way.For Beatrix Potter fans who thought adulthood meant leaving their favorite author behind, these books will be a delight. Thank goodness there are a lot of them, because I don't want them to end!!

This is an utterly charming book that brings the lake country to life with believable human characters and even believable four-footed characters who talk. Beautifully written and a perfect book for lovers of the village cozy mystery and of Beatrix Potter.

Lovely story

Not a book found readily in the UK. This copy had to come from the USA. It's pure fiction but written in a delightful and gentle way which conjures up the world of Beatrix Potter. If you're fed up of books which dwell on the darker side of life, these tales are a good antidote.

Wenn ich nicht die anderen beiden Serien der Autorin gekannt hätte, hätte ich wohl nach dem ersten Kapitel aufgegeben, aber da sie eigentlich ganz tolle Krimis schreibt, habe ich mich weitergekämpft. Es hat sich gelohnt. Sicher etwas anders als man sonst von ihr gewohnt ist, doch gut ausgeführt, die Charaktere mit einer angenehmen Tiefe versehen, ist diese Geschichte vielversprechend für die weiteren Bände der Reihe. Der Anfang war schwer, deshalb einen Stern Abzug, doch der Rest las sich gut.

Good.

Just could not get in to this