Dean Street December Drei

 It's December 2024 and Dean Street Press have once again given me something to celebrate. The wonderful Liz Dexter's  hosting a third Dean Street December, and this year, my entries feature four new-to-me authors, between them accounting for all but four of my set.

For the inaugural Dean Street December, I managed to read and review 27 books published by Dean Street Press. For Dean Street December Deux, I opted for a much saner 15, and that's where I've ended up this year too, shown in the image below. In last year's challenge, several of the non-mystery middlebrow books were new to my library, but this year the major new entries are two mystery series I'd not even heard of before and my first two non-fiction works from Dean Street Press, biographies by Sheridan Morley. One of the three middlebrow entries from is a second chance for an author who left me tepid on my first encounter, Susan Scarlett.

 Once again, I plan to read the books in the left-to-right order of the screenshot, mixing up mysteries from E. R. Punshon and Sara Woods - the latter only released by DSP in December 2024 - with Brian Flynn, Christopher Bush and Moray Dalton. Molly Clavering, Susan Scarlett and Margery Sharp are representing team Furrowed Middlebrow.

 As an avid user and endorser of The StoryGraph, I'll again be posting all my reviews there, but will also update this page with a link to the reviews as I finish each book. Once again, my reviews will include "Did Not Finish" reviews if needed. Life really IS too short to waste on books that don't gel, and so if any of these books trigger my drop reflex, I will outline why I dropped them rather than force myself to finish them.

This year, the first entry for my Dean Street December is Information Received  by E. R. Punshon, the first of his Bobby Owen Mysteries. As always, the introduction by Curtis Evans is a great start to the reading experience.  Since the first book starts with death by firearm and makes extensive use of Shakespeare, I will start my Dean Street December 2024 with "Once more unto the breech!"  

 

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And that's a wrap on what has proved to be the most statistically successful Dean Street December yet for me. The inaugural event saw me finish 27 books for an average of 3.96/5, 2023 returned a a 3.98 average for 15 books, and this year's fifteen averaged 4.2/5. Those helpful stats from The StoryGraph don't reflect the joy I found from discovering three new authors whose works I'll be looking out for, or the education I gained from two detailed biographies that taught me more about people who mattered to people who mattered to me. WELL DONE DEAN STREET PRESS.

Reading is of course incredibly personal and subjective, which is why I have always described my 'reviews' as being reactions. They are simply how I reacted to what I read, not an assessment of their merits, as I'm utterly unqualified to make such judgments. So while I would never describe any book as a "must-read" (There.Is.No.Such.Thing), if any of the reactions linked to here help anyone to find a DSP book that THEY enjoy, that would be a real delight. Happy reading, and here's hoping we get to do it all again next year. If we do, it will once again be thanks to a reader who really DOES know her stuff and writes real reviews. Thanks again, Liz Dexter!