One late spring evening in 1912, in the kitchens at Sterne, preparations begin for an elegant supper party in honor of Emerald Torrington’s twentieth birthday. But only a few miles away, a dreadful accident propels a crowd of mysterious and not altogether savory survivors to seek shelter at the ramshackle manor—and the household is thrown into confusion and mischief.
The cook toils over mock turtle soup and a chocolate cake covered with green sugar roses, which the hungry band of visitors is not invited to taste. But nothing, it seems, will go according to plan. As the passengers wearily search for rest, the house undergoes a strange transformation. One of their number (who is most definitely not a gentleman) makes it his business to join the birthday revels.
Evening turns to stormy night, and a most unpleasant parlor game threatens to blow respectability to smithereens: Smudge Torrington, the wayward youngest daughter of the house, decides that this is the perfect moment for her Great Undertaking.
The Uninvited Guests is the bewitching new novel from the critically acclaimed Sadie Jones. The prizewinning author triumphs in this frightening yet delicious drama of dark surprises—where social codes are uprooted and desire daringly trumps propriety—and all is alight with Edwardian wit and opulence.
About Sadie Jones
Sadie Jones’s first novel, THE OUTCAST, was published to wide critical acclaim and won the Costa First Novel Award in Great Britain. It was also a finalist for the prestigious Orange Prize, as well as a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction. A year later, she published her second novel, SMALL WARS, a tale of love, war, and honor, again to impressive critical praise. THE UNINVITED GUESTS is her brilliant third book, a complete departure from her earlier novels, and a small masterpiece. Sadie Jones lives in London.
Editorial Review
Jones (Small Wars, 2010, etc.) quickly establishes a tension-riddled scenario. Charlotte Torrington Swift is in danger of losing Sterne, the grand manor bought for her by her adoring first husband, who couldn’t afford it and died leaving a pile of debts. Second husband Edward is off to Manchester to try and save Sterne—not that this wins him any favor from petulant Clovis and Emerald, who have never liked their stepfather. Edward will miss Emerald’s 20th birthday party, to which childhood friends Patience and Ernest Sutton have been invited; spoiled but good-natured Emerald worries that the clever, unfashionable siblings will be rudely treated by her ill-tempered brother and their status-obsessed mother. Circumstances become even more unpromising with the arrival of survivors of a terrible crash on the nearby branch line, whom the Great Central Railway informs Charlotte will have to be hosted overnight. There’s something very odd about these passengers, and odder still about Charlie Traversham-Beechers, another survivor and an old acquaintance of Charlotte’s, though she’s clearly alarmed to see him. Traversham-Beechers is invited to the awkward birthday dinner, while housekeeper Florence Trieves struggles to find food for his increasingly rowdy fellow passengers. He uses a self-invented game, Hinds and Hounds, to encourage the airing of everyone’s unpleasant opinions about each other, and the game ends with Traversham-Beechers’ ugly revelations about Charlotte’s past. At this point, what seemed to be a savage comedy of manners takes a 90-degree turn and becomes a supernatural confection. There’s no question about Jones’ skill—the novel is cleverly constructed and written in smooth prose. It’s quite a step down in ambition and moral seriousness, however, from her two previous novels. The nasty climax to Hinds and Hounds, obviously intended to make a statement about the human capacity for evil, has its impact muffled by the deliberately implausible happy ending, modeled on a Shakespearean romance. – Kirkus Reviews
Brit Wit Meets Manor Mystery In ‘Uninvited Guests’
NPR Book Review – June 6, 2012 (Excerpt)
A dark and stormy night; an isolated manor house; a knock at the door. These are the surefire elements that have kept Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap creaking continuously on the London stage ever since its premiere in 1952. And these are the very same elements that make Sadie Jones’ new novel, The Uninvited Guests, such a delicious romp to read.
In addition to The Mousetrap, Jones’ bauble brings to mind the Edwardian ghost stories of M.R. James, the English country house comedy of Angela Thirkell’s novels and the class-consciousness of J.B. Priestley’s play An Inspector Calls. Oh, dash it all! I may as well surrender and toss in the inevitable comparison to the U.K. television drama Downton Abbey, too. The Uninvited Guests is an Anglophile’s delight, a veritable shepherd’s pie pastiche of Brit wit and blithe spirits.
The novel opens on a May day in 1912 at Sterne, an English great house owned by the Torrington family, who find themselves in straightened economic circumstances. Servants have been let go, and damp is invading the older part of the manor. Nonetheless, a lavish birthday dinner is to be held that evening for Emerald Torrington, who’s just turned 20. Emerald’s surly older brother, Clovis, will be in attendance, as well as her quirky kid sister, nicknamed “Smudge.” Emerald’s childhood girlfriend and her brother, as well as a rich neighbor and Emerald’s beautiful mama, round out the party. [Read the full article...]
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QUEEN OF MISFORTUNE A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll
A Love Story of Shakespearean Dimension!
Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same strange who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]
We are the only country that makes guns, including military-style assault weapons, available to anyone who wants to buy them. This is not freedom. It is a tyranny of death and destruction — a tyranny of which the National Rifle Association is proud. The Washington Post
