Unless Some Sweetness at the Bottom Lie,

Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie? - William King The Art of Cookery 1708

I just finished The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.
Amazing.
British (I have a secret love affair for accents)
Flavia De Luce
Going to be a series.
sign

LOVED IT. So you should go read it. And if you don't like, don't tell me, I won't be able to let such harsh words fall upon my adoring ears.

It is a kind of Nancy Drew-esque/boxcar kids/three investigators type book. The main character is an 11 year old girl named Flavia De Luce. She's adorable, astute, a chemist hopeful, witty, and all of the sassiness that an 11 year old can be.

And since I'm so twitterpated with it still and wouldn't do the book justice, here is the review from amazon:

Amazon Best of the Month, April 2009: It's the beginning of a lazy summer in 1950 at the sleepy English village of Bishop's Lacey. Up at the great house of Buckshaw, aspiring chemist Flavia de Luce passes the time tinkering in the laboratory she's inherited from her deceased mother and an eccentric great uncle. When Flavia discovers a murdered stranger in the cucumber patch outside her bedroom window early one morning, she decides to leave aside her flasks and Bunsen burners to solve the crime herself, much to the chagrin of the local authorities. But who can blame her? What else does an eleven-year-old science prodigy have to do when left to her own devices? With her widowed father and two older sisters far too preoccupied with their own pursuits and passions—stamp collecting, adventure novels, and boys respectively—Flavia takes off on her trusty bicycle Gladys to catch a murderer. In Alan Bradley's critically acclaimed debut mystery, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, adult readers will be totally charmed by this fearless, funny, and unflappable kid sleuth. But don't be fooled: this carefully plotted detective novel (the first in a new series) features plenty of unexpected twists and turns and loads of tasty period detail. As the pages fly by, you'll be rooting for this curious combination of Harriet the Spy and Sherlock Holmes. Go ahead, take a bite. --Lauren Nemroff