Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins
Magpie Lane explores the actual meaning of family and what it is like to be denied one while meandering through Oxford’s hidden graveyards and secret pathways. Police turn to the Scottish nanny, Dee, after the eight-year-old daughter of an Oxford College Master disappears in the middle of the night. Dee recalls her time spent in the Master’s Lodging, a strange and old house, and a picture of a successful but troubled family emerges: Nick, a powerful and ferociously brilliant father; Mariah, his stunning Danish wife, who is expecting their kid; and Felicity, the lost young child who is nearly mute, sees ghosts, and laments her deceased mother. But is Dee being really truthful? Are there any reasons to be concerned about her budding friendship with the odd house historian, Linklater? Most importantly, why was Felicity quiet?
Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins
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The rooms of the new Master of one of the colleges are where the book is set in Oxford. The mansion is currently undergoing renovations, including whitewashing the floorboards, by the Master’s Scandinavian wife. Again, I won’t give anything away, but this novel is probably in the glossy subgenre of home noir crime fiction. In these works, I find a small reflection of my own life: juggling a family and a home, loving one’s job but being overly busy as a result, and fearing losing sight of what’s important while becoming overly obsessed with other things.
Mark Law, the new master of Oxford College, 53, and Mariah Law, his second lovely young wife, 38, had just moved into the lodging on the Oxford College campus. They were in desperate need of a nanny to help with Felicity, Mark’s 8-year-old daughter, who suffered from selective mutism and spoke exclusively to Mark because Felicity’s mother, Ana, 43, passed away when she was just 4 years old. Felicity had selective mutism. She had a deep bond with her mother, who breastfed her until she was three and a half years old and carried her in a sling until she was 18 months old. When Felicity’s devoted mother passed away, her entire world fell apart.
Mariah, Felicity’s stepmother, was typically sweet but was often irritated by what she felt was Felicity’s “refusal” to talk to her. More complicated than that was involved. Once the baby was born, she had every intention of sending Felicity to boarding school. At age 17, Mariah travelled to London as an au pair. She had a difficult upbringing, including an unstable mother, a lot of drinking, and unkind husbands. Mariah was a poor au pair and ended up getting a job at Ana’s bookshop. Mariah was an overweight girl with horrible hair and little sense of style before Ana, a bright, magnificent, glamorous, and educated woman, took her under her wing and helped her become a more self-assured beauty. At the bookstore, Mariah met a specialist in old wallpaper who piqued her interest in the subject and later extended an employment opportunity.
Mathematician Dee, 46, was raised as a lone child in a former mill in a rural area of Scotland. After her father passed away when she was 20, she went away and never met her mother. She had spent the previous 26 years living and working on the Oxford campus as a nanny for various Oxford residents. She always had employment because people were always coming and going…
