Customer Reviews
Couldn't put it down! 
2007-04-08
I couldn't put it down, which was a bit of a shame being as I bought it for my daughter (who is eleven). Beatrice is a great kid! She is contemporary and clever, and best of all she has the backing of the most wondrous clique of TV chefs, led by the ever buoyant Jamie Oliver.....
The story is multi layered and packed with secrets, riddles, anagrams and clues (Makes Da Vinci Code look positively childish!). It is strangely old fashioned - the creaky town of `Dorsal Fin' conceals a world of secret passages, shipwrecks kidnapping, and dastardly deeds - but the kids are bang up to date, with their DVD players, lap tops and cell phones. Part of the brilliance of the book is this mixing of the old and the new...It creates a story that is timeless; with an appeal that is ageless (I love the fact that the climax of the story is shared between Beatrice and her Great Aunt Maud).
Dave Jeffery's writing style is masterful; he weaves this tale with great skill, capturing his characters, settings and dialogue....And then there are the `sinister chapters' written in the second person, filled with menace and foreboding....Mr. Jeffery can send a shiver down your spine, intrigue and bemuse you, charm you, and make you laugh out loud...and that he can do this so unobtrusively and seemingly effortlessly, is a true indication of his power and control.
Great writing, a wonderful adventure, the most endearing characters, and something magical; I do think that this is an absolutely brilliant book....And I'm very much looking forward to the next....
Simply Delicious! 2008-04-17
Like a culinary masterpiece, I found Beatrice Beecham's Fearsome Feast to be extremely palatable indeed. The riddle-solving reminded me of the Three Investigators, while the exploration of secret passages was reminiscent of the Famous Five. And Aunt Maud's house, with its assortment of peculiar rooms, provided a pinch of Roald Dahl.
The story was exciting and certainly kept me gripped. I also greatly enjoyed the imaginary conversations that Beatrice had with Jamie Oliver and some of the other well-known British celebrity chefs. This is despite the fact that I'm not particularly into the cooking show genre or a big follower of any of those guys. The various plotlines (like the Fearsome Feast competition and the mystery of the Charlotte Elizabeth) were cleverly interweaved. Apart from the story, the characters are also engaging, especially Beatrice herself. The secondary characters are also quite well developed.
One of the few down sides for me was that the Epilogue was rather unsatisfactory and made the ending feel slightly untidy. On the whole, I prefer books to end with a sense of proper closure, although there should certainly be some scope for creating anticipation for the next book in a series. Speaking of which, I look forward to sampling Beatrice Beecham's Fete of Fate, which has just come out.
The other thing that bothered me was the somewhat high number of typos, which were a little bit distracting. But I'm sure a good copy-editor can fix that. ;-)
All in all, I found this book to be simply delicious and recommend that everyone put it on their reading menu! Pukka! :-)
A Great Read 2008-02-24
This is a great book. Beatrice moves to the coast with her mom, dad, and little brother after her father loses his job. While there her mother's friend, Aunt Maud, gives her an old cookbook. From there the adventure begins. With her new found friends and her active imagination involving famous cooks, she sets off on a mystery that involves a past shipwreck, an interesting cooking contest, and many more twists and turns. This book is filled with colorful characters (you'll especially love Aunt Maud), a great adventure, and a surprise ending. I can't wait for more books from this author.
A romping adventure! 2008-02-21
When 12-year-old Beatrice Beecham is given an old cookbook that completely comes apart when it falls off her bed, she finds hidden treasures that whisk her and her friends into a dangerous mystery. The oldest and richest family in Dorsal Finn has a murderous secret, and the most powerful people in town are helping them keep it. With the help of adventurous friends and a quick-thinking librarian, Beatrice develops a theory, but the only way to prove her suspicions is to enter the Fearsome Feast contest and win an overnight stay at the mansion.
Can she do it? Not without a bounty of close calls, perilous consequences, and finding the right time and place to use her cookbook treasures, clues from a desperate matriarch long dead.
Beatrice Beecham is delightful, scrappy, and the most exciting thing that has happened in Dorsal Finn for a long time. Dave Jeffery has created a tale that's intelligent and fun from start to finish, and full of surprises. This is one romping adventure!
Fills the coal scuttle 2007-04-10
What a wondrous beginning (after the dreadfully amateurish cover)! There's an exhilarating account of an ancient ship wreck, then we flash forward as an eccentric father who's lost his job, his wife, a younger brother absorbed in sci-fi technology and the brainy narrator who hears voices of--this is too brilliant for words--popular TV chefs make their way to the house of a strange aunt in the costal village of Dorsal Finn. This combination of traditional bedtime-story elements and contemporary references to cell phones, I-Pods, Star Wars and Harry Potter will make children (7 through early teens), their parents and even grandparents feel comfortably at home.
But there's adventure afoot: treasure with anagram clues, villains (including the notorious Chorley brothers), reenactment of an historic masque (shades of Edgar Allan Poe), a past murder uncovered and, last but not least, the "fearsome feast" in which entrants concoct hideous entrees (the one that can't be eaten by the notorious Vladimir Karlof wins). "A tale's not worth tellin' if it's not told right!" proclaims Aunt Maud. And this one abounds in treasures of its own. For example, the Aunt's little comments "...she's as reliable as a one handed alarm clock" and unobtrusive bits of psychological insight-- when Beatrice feels like a stranger in her new bedroom, Aunt Maud tells her about her own experience as a child in a strange bedroom when she was transported into the country during the bombing of London during World War II, "But I think the real reason I didn't want it to be mine. I was scared that if I accepted it then I would never see the world I knew ever again."
There are four very short surreal chapters from a second person point of view that may be confusing to young readers since we don't know who the "you" is and the cinematic ending seems unnecessarily complicated to me. But overall this is a great feast with course after course of satisfying dishes. It is the book as treasure hunt. Or like Aunt Maud would say, a story that "fills the coal scuttle."
Hard time putting it down 
2007-04-10
Reviewed by Brianne Plach (age 9) for Reader Views (4/07)
Welcome to Dorsal Finn! This is a wonderful town where everyone knows everyone else's name. Beatrice Beechham is a 12 year old girl who moves to Dorsal Finn with her parents and younger brother Tom. They have been invited to live with one of Mrs. Beecham's closest friends Maud. Beatrice and Tom refer to her as Aunt Maud. Beatrice gets to meet some of the most interesting residents including the Newshounds. She makes a very good friend in Patience, which is a very good name in this town since Beatrice will need a lot of it living here. Lucas was able to figure out any clues as they came along.
They have moved to Dorsal Finn just in time for the annual fearsome feast contest. The contest involves cooking the most disgusting dish. In the last few years no one has been able to defeat Vladimir Karloff. Beatrice decides to enter the contest. The day of the contest is a part of the Masque, a very dressy occasion. Can Beatrice come up with a dish that will turn everyone's stomach?
Aunt Maud gives her a cookbook. Anyway, it looks like a cookbook but it is actually a bunch of clues so there is a mystery to solve too. Sometimes secrets are fun to figure out and sometimes secrets are better kept hidden.
I really liked "Beatrice Beecham's Fearsome Feast." It let me visit England, learn some of their Old English language, and their customs. I had a hard time laying this book down until I was finished with it. I was sad to see the book come to a close but I was happy with its ending. I hope Dave Jeffery writes more books like this.
