Queen Lucia by E. F. Benson

Having watched Mapp and Lucia over Christmas I wanted to read one of the books. This is the first in the series, describing Miss Elizabeth Mapp, the socialite of the small town of Tilling.  I look forward to reading some more.

"The hours of the morning between breakfast and lunch were the time which the inhabitants of Riseholme chiefly devoted to spying on each other."
 

Hilarious - life in "backwater" England with a flair unmatched...from yoga to opera to seances, the jockeying of the village's inhabitants to hold onto (or pilfer) their "next great thing" is well worth reading.
I loved the flamboyancy of the characters and just how funny E. F. Benson’s writing is.
It has a very dry sense of humour.

There are some things that grated at first; for example how Lucia speaks baby to her friend Georgie but you quickly get over it.
There is the description of the mysterious Indian Guru which is the talk of the village.  It is un-pc by today’s standards but written in the 1920’s and set very much in that era, people did have such prejudices.