The Series Factor -- Old Friends by Sheena Wilkinson

I love a good book series. Doesn’t everyone? There’s something so comforting about finding a fictional world to retreat to, and when there’s more than one story set in that world it’s even better. 

As a child, I read voraciously, and some of my favourite books – and the ones I’ve gone on to collect as adults – have been in series. Back then, I don’t think I ever managed to read a series in order. Most of my books came from the library, so it depended very much on what happened to be on the shelves. The few books I owned tended to be presents bought by grandparents and they were more likely to be worthy classics than the Malory Towers or Five Find-Outers titles I craved.

One of the longest series ever written is Elinor M Brent-Dyer’s Chalet School series, with 59 in the original hardbacks series. Published between 1925 and 1970 the quality is variable, with most fans agreeing that the last twenty or so book are formulaic, heavy on incident but light on character development. By then of course, it doesn’t matter so much – you’ve been well and truly hooked and you read on anyway. If the current term’s adventures aren’t up to much, there’s always the chance of gleaning some news of old girls. It’s rather like keeping in touch with an old friend: you might not have much in common; you find her rather dull, but just occasionally you share a joke that reminds you what attracted you to each other all those years ago.

Now I have all the Chalet School books and when I reread them, which I do perhaps once a decade, I always read them in order. But that’s very far from how I encountered them. Back in the seventies and eighties you took what you could find, and as the whole series was never in print at one time, and the paperbacks were published out of order, with the final ones not appearing until the nineties, I grew accustomed to meeting the main character Jo as a twelve-year-old, then as a prefect, then as the mother of eleven, then a fifteen-year-old, then a young bride... It was disconcerting, I suppose, and there were a lot of spoilers. When a young Dr Maynard appeared in the cast, I already knew, because I had read the later books, that he would marry Jo and sire those eleven children.  Still, that was just part of the experience, and all I remember is the joy of finding another Chalet book – any Chalet book. Only on the back of some of the less-easy-to-find hardbacks was there a list of all the titles, so for years I didn’t even know how long the series was.

And it was exciting, all that uncertainty: the jeopardy of book collecting.

As an adult, less of my reading is in series, which means that every time you open a book, even by a well-loved author, there’s a certain anxiety: what if I don’t like it? what if I can’t get into it? With the series factor, you eliminate that. One genre which works well in series is the mystery, whether golden age or modern, hard-boiled or cosy. You get a good mystery every time but you also hope to keep pace with the life and sometimes loves of the main characters. 

For ages people have been recommending the Dr Ruth Galloway mysteries by Elly Griffiths, about a forensic archaeologist who helps the police, most particularly the disturbingly attractive detective Nelson with their enquiries. I had read so much about these books that one day, about a month ago, I downloaded the first one, The Crossing Places,  on my kindle. On page one I smiled. On page two I winced in recognition. By page three I had not only laughed aloud twice but I knew, as certainly as I knew my name, that not only would I enjoy this book, but that I would read the fourteen which followed. In order.

I discovered these delightful, smart, funny, immersive books at the perfect time. Not only was the world a scary place and my own life full of stresses (the usual trigger for a Chalet School reread) but, more pleasantly, I was about to go on holiday. The kind of holiday which would involve a lot of lying on a sunbed reading. I had got to book 6, when my kindle flashed up a message: You have read 6 of 15 books. Do you want to buy the others?

Well, yes, I did. And all week, as soon as one murder was solved, there was the next one waiting for me. I didn’t have to think, what am I going to read? I didn’t have to worry that I wouldn’t like it. And if the first chapter seemed to be about a random, unappealing character, I knew I need not fear – soon Ruth and Nelson would be on the scene, and all would be right with the world. At least with the fictional world.

I avoid Covid books but I loved The Locked Room, book 14 in the series, because by then I knew and cared for the characters so much that I wanted to see how they coped in lockdown. 

As the series drew to an end, I was bereft, but comforted by the fact that there were seven Brighton mysteries by the same author, set in the fifties and sixties. There’s even a school story series for younger readers. I’m not young, but I’ll be buying that too.

Soon I will have exhausted all those books, and it will be time to look for, and enjoy excellent standalone books again, but for now I am just loving my discovery of a reliably enjoyable author, and the luxury of being able to read my way through her stories in order. 

I know I will feel bereft when I finish, but luckily, in the middle of all this binge-reading, the wonderful Rachel Ward published her most recent Supermarket Mystery, The Missing Heirloom Mystery. So once again I know I can rely on excellent writing, a satisfying mystery, a compellingly-drawn setting and characters who feel like old friends. 

The Comfort of Reading a Series by Lynne Benton

I wasn’t at all sure whether I would manage to come up with anything for this month’s blog, but I’ll do my best.  The reason for this is that my husband and I are still recovering from the dreaded Covid, which has gone on far longer than either of us had anticipated.  We’d both been double-jabbed, and were always careful re face masks etc., but still we managed to catch it – and I don’t recommend it!  In my case it started with a horrendous cough that went on all day and all night for about a week, combined with total exhaustion, and although it’s now four weeks since I caught it and the cough has more or less gone, the exhaustion remains.  I appreciate that we have both been really lucky not to have been hospitalised, like so many others, but it’s still been a difficult time.

However, and this is writing-related, you’ll be glad to know, what kept me going was reading, in particular series reads.  Normally when I’ve read one book I like to read something quite different next, but for some reason, while I was feeling so rubbish, all I wanted to do was to read a whole series, one after the other, in the right order.  (Which I could do, thanks to my wonderful Kindle!)  Maybe it was the comfort of feeling I knew the main characters, so didn’t have to start each book working out who was who and whether they could be trusted or not.  Reading more and more stories about my favourite characters was remarkably relaxing.  The series I started with and enjoyed most was the “Doctor Ruth Galloway” series by Elly Griffiths (recommended to me by fellow-blogger Sue Purkiss). 

                                                                           

I was delighted to see that there were thirteen books in the series, and read them all avidly, obsessively, even – until I got to the end of the 13^th and discovered to my dismay that the next one won’t be published until February!

After that I began on a series by Ann Granger (The Mitchell and Markby series) which I also enjoyed.

Yes, we did watch some television, but that proved to be quite tiring – except for watching the David Suchet “Poirot” films, (yes, another series when we knew the characters!) which really helped to take our minds off how we were feeling.

So yet again, more stories, more series…

And I remembered that, when I was a child, how much I'd enjoyed reading series books – most especially L. M. Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables” series and Malcolm Saville’s “Lone Pine” series.  Though of course in those days there was little chance of reading them in the right order – it depended which books the library happened to have in at the time!  I still loved them, though, and eventually read both complete series.

So maybe when we’re ill we automatically revert to the comfort of remembered childhood pleasures.  Whatever it was, stories, in particular series stories, gave me a lot of pleasure at the time when I could do little else.

Now I must get back to writing stories too - maybe I should write a series…

Website: www.lynnebenton.com