“The Secret Lives of the Doyenne of Didsbrook” by Tessa Barrie

First of all, I must confess that I have a soft spot for the English countryside as a book setting. Two decades ago, I used to live in a beautiful rural location on the Jurassic coast, and every time I read about an English village, it brings a warm wave of nostalgia. Walking along the coastal path, I often felt as if I were in a book or a movie. The scenery was breathtaking, and locals were a ready cast for some quirky British tv show.

“The Secret Lives of the Doyenne of Didsbrook” by Tessa Barrie ticked all the right boxes for me. Set in a quaint English village, the story revolves around the parts of locals’ lives that they would prefer to remain hidden forever.

Didsbrook, an English village where all inhabitants know each other, and many are acquainted since childhood, is shattered by the news. A murder in their midst! Something unheard of. And if that shock is not enough, a person killed is the pillar of their tightly-knit society. The victim is Jocelyn Robertshaw, the owner of a local ‘big manor’, a popular theatre actress in the past, and now a successful author of best-selling books. There isn’t a single person in the whole of Didsbrook who isn’t affected by her death. The reasons why people are feeling upset differ vastly, though. After all, one of them is a killer.

Lucy Fothergill returns home from university, with her head full of plans about travelling with her best friend and her new job in London, only to find that her beloved mentor is dead. Moreover, the explanation the police come to after the investigation is absurd. So, instead of spending her time revelling in nostalgia, pampered by her parents, Lucy dives into her own investigation. Little does she know what shocking secrets she is about to uncover. Soon she learns that almost everyone living in quiet Didsbrook has a skeleton or a few in their closet. Who could have imagined it in a little town so peaceful that to solve the suspicious death, the local police station’s two officers had to ask for help from a bigger city’s department?

“The Secret Lives of the Doyenne of Didsbrook” by Tessa Barrie is a compelling cosy mystery, replete with long-kept family secrets and sometimes eccentric characters. While Lucy gradually unravels the knot of threads that should lead her to the person who really killed Jocelyn Robertshaw, readers are given a chance to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of quintessential English charm.