Book Review: Black Hearts in Battersea

littlerhymes and I continued our Joan Aiken readings with Black Hearts in Battersea, the very loosely connected sequel to The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. Move over, Bonnie and Sylvia; our hero this time is Simon, Bonnie's friend the goose boy who lives in a cave in the woods and discovered a talent for art as he was helping Bonnie and Sylvia escape to London.

Now Simon is on his way to London to study art at Dr. Furneaux's academy. He is supposed to lodge with Dr. Field, an artist-doctor whom he met in the previous book... but when he arrives at the Twite's lodging house, Dr. Field is nowhere to be found, and the Twites insist he was never there!

On the bright side, Simon does run into his old friend Sophie, whom he met in the workhouse before he ran away to be a goose boy. Sophie is now the lady's maid to the duchess of Battersea! Also, before she was in the workhouse, she was raised by otters.

This is mentioned once and never again, which is extremely Joan Aiken. Another author might make "raised by otters" the entire plot, but Aiken has far too many fish to fry to linger on it for more than a sentence. We have Hanoverian conspiracies to deal with! (They are yearning for Bonnie Prince Georgie to come over the sea and overthrow King James III. Aiken is having a fantastic time.) A wolf attack to defeat using croquet mallets and billiard balls! No less than three assassination attempts, all foiled by Sophie with the aid of the tapestry that the duchess is embroidering! A kidnapping, a boat-burning, a hot air balloon ride from Yorkshire to London...

Also the introduction of Dido Twite, who is, I believe, the heroine of most of the rest of the series, who ends this book completely AWOL but for Sophie's confident assertion that she's sure Dido is fine somewhere, a plotting choice that Joan Aiken somehow gets away with even though it would I think drive me up the bend from anyone else. She's just having such a good time that you have to have a good time too.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this means our Joan Aiken list is growing: we have already agreed to add Midnight is a Place and Dido and Pa onto our original five-book plan. Will this end with us reading the complete Wolves of Willoughby Chase series? We shall see.