I've read EF Benson's Mapp and Lucia novels, and also books by other authors featuring our two heroines, so many times but it's always a pleasure to revisit them.

This is book three of Benson's chronicle. It's the last before Mapp and Lucia finally meet and is in some ways the odd one out in the set in that it's set in neither Riseholme nor Tilling but (mainly) in London and the other characters are a lot more knowing than in the other novels in that they regard Lucia as an amusement rather than one of nature's forces.

But it's still a fine read and I wouldn't dream of skipping it as part of my current re-reading of the whole set.

Next up is 'Mapp and Lucia' and then the sparks will really start to fly ... but that's for another day.