The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries: Drama and Danger: New for 2022, a mystery-filled detective story for children, perfect for fans of Robin Stevens!: Book 1

Product Information

They team up, making notes and following suspects – until they’re plunged into terrible danger themselves.

The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries is a thrilling book that follows Lizzie Sancho and her new friend Dido Belle as they start to uncover a plot that puts Lizzie’s father’s life under threat.This beautiful story brings Georgian London to life with two delightful young detectives which I instantly fell in love with. I assumed that there would be no mention of racism whatsoever, as the book started so lighthearted (minus Ignatius’s injury), but it does, and in good detail. Thirdly, Belle’s house, which is a massive mansion of a place which -despite its size – is quite bare of people.

Her father is to play Othello, a character in a play by William Shakespeare – he is the first Black man to do so, making it a momentous performance in history.

Set in 1700s London, Lizzie and Belle meet unexpectedly but find they both have inquisitive minds and love solving mysteries so when Lizzie's Dad (the first black man to take to the stage in Othello) narrowly survives an attempt on his life, the girls are determined to investigate, despite all of the ways society and other people try to stop them. My favourite moment in the story was very close to the end, when the mischievous duo tricked their enemy!

The next instalment The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries: Portraits and Poisoning is coming soon and I cannot wait to read it. The age range it was reaching for was still present in the descriptions of characters and plot twists, but I liked it. The book opened my eyes about the slave trade because I had heard of it before but didn’t realise just how serious it really was.

The three main settings are Lizzie’s house (a café) where there are many visitors and it is warm, snug and usually busy.