Skip to main content

The Long-Lost Home (Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place #6)



The Long-Lost Home (Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place # 6) 
By Maryrose Wood
Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2018. Historical Fantasy, 440 p.

If you were to ask me for a list of my top five audio books to listen to then I would mention the series The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, which may or may not be one of my all-time favorite listens. The Long-Lost Home is the sixth and final book in this series. (If you have not read this series, please start with The Mysterious Howling, which is just brilliant!) All in all, this is still one of the great children’s series to listen to on audio books. Not only because it has great narrators, but all in all because they are just brilliant books.

In this book, Penelope Lumley is trapped as a governess for a family of kids in Russia. Miss Lumley is unhappy and misses her Incorrigible charges—and not only because they have better manners but also because she now knows that they are in danger! (Warning: small spoilers are about to follow if you haven’t read the previous books in this series…)

The curse on the Ashtons (and also the Incorrigible Children) is about to come to a head with the birth of Lady Constance’s baby. Edward Ashton is determined to make sure that his descendants are the ones to survive the curse—which means killing Penelope and the three Incorrigibles. Throughout the previous five books there were all sorts of mysteries that seemed to have no answers. Well, in this final installment there are a lot of answers thrown in amidst the daring journey of Penelope as she tries to get back to Ashton Place.

Although this last book is not narrated by the great Kathrine Kellgren (who passed away from cancer this past year), Fiona Hardingham does a good job at keeping the pace and character voices & nuances that Kellgren introduced as a narrator in the previous five books. And if you listen to the book you will hear the dedication talk about all that (I almost cried, really). So basically this is a brilliant book (and series!) to listen to. Yeah, can you tell that I love this and that I would recommend things over and over again?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Fowl Play

  Fowl Play By Kristin O'Donnell Tubb New York: Katherine Tegen Books, 2024. Fiction 277 pages. Still reeling from her beloved uncle's death, Chloe Alvarez is comforted and confused when at his last will and testament reading, Uncle Will gifts her his African Grey parrot, Charlie. Charlie has a robust vocabulary and loves to make Alexa requests for her favorite songs, but when she starts saying things like, "homicide," and "cyanide," Chloe becomes convinced that Uncle Will may have met his demise by murder instead of a genetic disease, as was previously thought. Ultimately, bringing in her brother, Grammy, and Uncle Frank (and of course Charlie,) Chloe's ragtag and adoring family support her search for answers ---going on stakeouts, engaging in fast pursuits, and searching for clues. But as the suspects stack up and the mystery grows, Chole will learn that the process of death and grieving is complicated, and in the end her Uncle Will's words that, ...

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Review: A Game of Noctis

A Game of Noctis By Deva Fagan New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2024. Fiction. 310 pages. On the island of Dantessa, social standings and wealth are determined by your place in the Great Game. If you keep on winning, you can reap treasures, power, and security for yourself and your family; but if you lose too many games, you'll be exiled to Pawn Island and a life of servitude. That's what happens to 12-year-old Pia's grandfather. Due to poor vision, he struggles to see the games, but also can't afford new eyeglasses without winning. When his score falls to zero, he is sent away. Desperate to bring him back, Pia joins a ragtag group of misfits to form a team for the annual game of Noctis. The game requires contestants to perform dangerous challenges in front of a live audience, and no one outside the wealthy Diamond District has ever won. Each member of Pia's team, the Seafoxes, has their own reason to compete, but if they're going to win they'll h...