Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar

Miss Blaine's Prefect #1

by Olga Wojtas

Fifty-something Shona is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, but has a deep loathing for The Primeof Miss Jean Brodie, which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name. Impeccably educated and an accomplished martial artist, linguist and musician, Shona is thrilled when selected by Marcia Blaine herself to travel back in time for a one-week mission in 19th century Russia: to pair up the beautiful, shy, orphaned heiress Lidia Ivanovna with Sasha, a gorgeous young man of unexplained origins. But, despite all her accomplishments and good intentions, Shona might well have got the wrong end of the stick about her mission. As the body count rises, will she discover in time just who the real villain is?

Genres: Mystery, Fantasy, Fiction, Time Travel, Historical Fiction, Humor, Historical

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 25, 2018

About the author

Olga Wojtas was born and brought up in Edinburgh where she attended James Gillespie s High School the model for Marcia Blaine School for Girls, which appears in Muriel Spark s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. She was encouraged to write by an inspirational English teacher there, Iona M. Cameron. Olga won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2015 and has had more than 30 short stories published in magazines and anthologies.

Reviews

[Cathy Cole · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I've wanted to throw a book against the wall. Normally I've stopped reading and chosen a different book long before that feeling arises. I just don't have time to waste on books that infuriate me.

But I did this time.

It might be because I was in the mood for a book that featured a little time travel, but something tells me that wasn't really it. How Shona got from present-day Edinburgh to Tzarist Russia was never explained, and how she conducted herself was one of the things that infuriated me the most. She was given absolutely no instructions when she arrived. She had a house and a servant at her disposal, a wardrobe full of appropriate attire as well as a pair of Doc Martins and a drawer filled with "multiway bras." She was told, more or less, that she would know what she was supposed to do when she saw it. I've been told that it's unladylike for a female to snort, but I did it anyway. More than once.

Shona proceeds to flounce about from place to place, spraying 21st-century opinions about like a machine gun. She quickly decides that a beautiful young heiress recently returned from exile needs to be married off to a beautiful young man and immediately begins working toward that goal. In almost no time at all, it seems that a tidal wave of elderly, filthy rich women begin falling down staircases and dying. Yes indeed, every time Shona and the beautiful young heiress visit, an old lady dies. Within a few pages, the identity of the killer is obvious, yet Shona never considers it for a second because... it's inconceivable that anyone who's so beautiful could be a homicidal maniac. (I think it's this assumption of hers that infuriated me the most.)

It didn't take me long to realize that I was undoubtedly supposed to read this book as a farce. That in itself is dangerous because farce is pretty hit-or-miss with me. Would my reaction have been more favorable if I had knowledge of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie? Perhaps, but I'm not in the mood to take the time to find out. The real question is: why did I keep reading all the way to the bitter end if the book infuriated me? I did want to find out if Shona ever got any sort of message from headquarters, or if she ever learned what year it was there in Russia. (No and No.) The more I think about it, the more it occurs to me that I was actually enjoying the way the author was saying what she was saying-- and she does have a wonderful sense of humor. There you have it. It's all Olga Wojtas' fault.

The final question is: Do I ever want to meet Shona McGonagle again?

Not on your life.

[lucky little cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woohoo! This is a lighthearted, fabulous, and funny satire in which indefatigable Scottish librarian Shona Aurora Mcmonagle

time-travels to Imperial Russia to stop an intrigue and mend the past. McMonagle is a Hermione-type smarty armed with all of the historical facts, but as one of the book's running jokes, McMonagle rarely interprets a clue accurately at first glance (or sometimes at second or even third). But she is also resourceful, and she has no time for self-doubt.

So it's a little like having a smart but ultra-dense Watson sitting squarely and unrepentantly in the Sherlock Holmes seat. This means the readers get to feel a little superior to McMonagle even while we root for her. ("No, no, Ms. McMonagle! Look behind you!") And readers do care about Shona McMonagle: she has pluck and heart; she is certain of her own identity and utterly comfortable in it, right down to her Doc Martens hidden beneath her long hemlines. And she comes loaded with a wealth of admirable habits of thought and endearing Scottish sayings which she freely spreads around Imperial Russia, e.g. "Sausages are the boys."

This novel is already evoking positive comparisons with Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm, which is a half-accurate comparison at best. Both books are loopy fun, with plenty of wallop-you-over-the-head humor through straight-faced exaggeration, but Cold Comfort Farm has a snide, condescending edge that I've honestly never liked. Miss Blaine's Prefect is the opposite, endlessly good-natured. And encouraging. With sausages.

Looking forward to McMonagle's next adventure!

keywords: now get back to that orangerie and paint your masterpiece; what a gorgeous matched pair; Glaswegian sausages probably contain no actual Glaswegians; the precarious dangers of a really big bust; now die for king and country

[Richard Derus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Real Rating: 3.5* of five

Shona McMonagle, whose life as a librarian is spent attempting to expunge The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie from the world's...okay, from Scotland's...make that Edinburgh's shelves for its heinous, unforgivable insults to her Revered Preceptress Marcia Blaine of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls. You will not be surprised to know that Miss Blaine, though now more than 274 years old, accepts this tribute to herself and her educational precepts, her centuries-old vow to make all her girls the crème de la crème in all their fields of endeavor, by inviting (in a more commanding than inviting way) Miss McMonagle to undertake a delicate mission for her. That mission will involve time travel to Tsarist St. Petersburg at some point between the Decembrist Revolution of 1825 and the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. (Running joke that gets forgotten a lot. You'll see.)

What can one say to a 274-year-old that hasn't been said many times? Shona accepts the brief and, hey prestwick...I mean presto!...after some thoroughly unpleasant pains she awakes in a peculiarly unsurprised and complaisant version of the capital of paranoid, isolationist, status-obsessed Imperial Russia, where she is Princess Shona Fergusovna. Or so she decides, being rather forced to take a title as her own despite her egalitarian and feminist principles. She does not, however, go so far as to pooh-pooh her Russian home from home's accoutrements:

I wandered back into the brightness of the salon and saw at the far end of the room my second samovar of the evening, vaster than the first, big enough to hold boiling water for the largest tea party I could host. It was golden, the pinnacle of the craftsman's art. It had whorls, it had curlicues, it had scallops, it had convolutions, it had involutions, it had dimples, it had excrescences, it had gibbosity, it had indentations, it had crenellations—it was utterly spectacular. And most magnificent of all was the design of the spigot. It was shaped like a ferocious eagle, its wings outstretched, its beak—I was about to run my fingers down it when I backed off. Its beak was razor sharp. I couldn't help tutting. It was an accident waiting to happen. I would have to remember this was an era before health and safety, and treat the samovar with extreme caution.

Charming litany. I quite like Princess Fergusovna. I also like her complete willingness to lust ever so discreetly after handsome young buck Sasha, whose beauty she first appreciates from beneath a sofa:

The young man's voice was light and attractive, the sort that you could listen to for hours on the radio. I wondered whether he had a face for radio as well.

He most assuredly does NOT have a face for radio, in that he is the protégé (pronounced by Shona, then all those who hear her, in the manner français, this reliably sends the Russians into fits of giggles for slightly obvious reasons) of a dreadful, lustful, stout, snobbish, evil-hearted countess. Her designs on his corpus delectable are strictly dishonorable, as are those of every other woman in St. Petersburg:

"I shall be waiting for you tomorrow afternoon," {a randy old widow} was saying.
"And I shall be counting the minutes until then," Sasha replied.
He was such a sweet guy. When he married Lidia, she would have to be careful that he didn't exhaust himself doing good works, and left some time for her.

You see, Miss Blaine wants Shona to infiltrate society's upper echelons to make sure beautiful, naive heiress Lidia gets her proper mate in this life. So Miss Blaine, through means undisclosed, gives Shona a house, a serf, and a lot of money. No one in St. Petersburg questions this apparition, it seems, accepting her story of being a Scottish peeress without question. And Shona, for her part, is a late-middle-aged matronly sort with peerless language and ninja skills, preternaturally acute hearing, and not one shred of common sense. Who cares who Lidia marries, especially a twenty-first-century feminist? Why go to all this trouble for someone who simply isn't that interesting, except that there needs to be a plot? And Shona's highly lusty crush on Sasha means she sees him as the proper mate for delectable little Lidia (who couldn't possible care less about him) in spite of a zillion unsubtle clues that she's got that wrong. (When she does get the right man for Lidia all set up, it's pretty much anticlimactic.)

But the journey's the thing, not the destination, right? I found trotting alongside Shona as she falls flat on her assumptions, picks herself up and carries on assuming (despite her new-found fondness for the aperçu "Never assume, it makes an ass of (yo)u and me" about which ::facepalm::) everything is about value of face as well as face value, to be a chuckle.

Not, however, a major one. This is a first novel and it is clear that the author hasn't quite got her hands around the neck of this clue-dropping thing just yet. She's quick with the witticism, johnny-on-the-spot with the dry double entendre, a dab hand with the mildly amusing misunderstanding and/or malapropism. All are inherent in slamming a bog-standard fiftysomething Scottish lady librarian (how Shona would *hate* that description!) into a culture much more patriarchal than the present Western one, and even though she endows Shona with amazing skills though without any solid explanation for them, the joke of the fish out of water works pretty well. For a while. By the end of the 250-page book I was really, really ready for the story to be wrapped up, and the couples (plural) to embark on their Russian lives, and Shona to get the heck back home. The throwaway bit at the very end about the blue paint made me guffaw, and sent me off away from the read with a much happier frame of mind that I would have been in otherwise.

Will I read the next one, assuming there is one? Maybe. I might. I could be persuaded. I will not, however, be waiting with bated breath for it to arrive. There are other, more deft, whimsical mysteries for me to read while the wait goes on.

[Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the year that all of us Muriel Spark fans are taking advantage of the centenary celebrations to revisit her books, a lovely random invitation to join this blog tour enticed me with the dangling carrot of a book with shades of Spark’s most famous work, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Quite frankly I didn’t need asking twice, and although I rarely pick up comic crime capers, my interest was piqued by this one, and into the world of Shona, I eagerly scampered…
I think apologies are due to my fellow bus travellers, and staffroom sharers, who had to endure a flurry of guffaws and sniggers as I read this. This book is an absolute hoot, packed to the gills with entertaining misunderstandings, acerbic asides, and comic set ups that although by their very nature were farcical were not annoyingly so. Wojtas has an absolute field day with the inevitable gaps in communication- contemporary Scottish vs 19th century Russian- as Shona responds to each situation with her mellifluous brogue and earthy vernacular, underpinned by her obvious raw intelligence, and mischievous delight at bamboozling those around her. Although her use of language is the primary way she establishes an exotic difference from those around her, this is compounded by her encyclopaedic knowledge of facts and figures, accrued by her ‘crème de la creme’ education, and her by day. mild mannered librarian guise. She continually trawls the depths of this knowledge,  to try to establish which period of history she has been transported into, and readily draws on it she needs to extract herself from potentially socially awkward, or perilous situations. I have read other books that have used this conceit in relation to the character, but unlike those I found this clever, witty, and brain-tickling.  I have also absorbed a host of possibly useless knowledge, that may stand me in good stead one day, during a particularly knife-edge game of Trivial Pursuit…
Still on the subject of Shona, I would like to applaud the author on putting a more mature woman- no need for the ‘o’ word- as her central character, and the additional layer of fun it brings to the proceedings. With her obvious intelligence, comes a wonderful bluntness, and sense of self awareness that carries the plot beautifully, colouring her interactions with others, but also delightfully lowering her defences at times when her slight susceptibility to flattery becomes evident. She is proudly Scottish, totally adept at manipulating situations to her advantage, and exudes an air of confidence and charisma that charms and alienates in equal measure. As potent a figure as she is in the book, Wojtas does not neglect the need to provide Shona with a consummate surrounding cast, and this she achieves with her merry band of fatuous, wealthy upper class Russian women, and Shona’s inherited serfs, who ramp up the comic aspect of the plot, but allows us to recognise the unfairness and brutality of Russian life and society at this time. With reference to that, Wojtas places both Shona and us firmly in this period with her historical detail, and a heightened sense of place and atmosphere, with colourful, rich description, and accomplished scene setting.
Although I am not an ardent fan of the time travelling trope in fiction generally, I thought this was well executed, even if an amount of suspension of disbelief was needed, and the foray into the upper echelons of Russian society from the rarefied air of Morningside in Edinburgh was easy enough for Shona to insinuate herself in. Yes, the plot was a little obvious from a fairly early stage in the case of whodunit and indeed whydunnit, but to be honest, the book just carries you along on a stream of hilarity with our gung-ho gal Shona, that this matters little. A faint air of the ridiculous, more than a few belly laughs, and you may well pick up some interesting factoids too… Recommended.

[Susan Hampson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a fun book to read with the type of humour I just love. The sort of stuff that makes you cringe and giggle all at the same time and all delivered by Shona McMonagle, time traveller extrodinaire.
Shona is on a mission to change the course of history way back in eighteen hundred and something Imperial Russia. She isn’t sure what she is to change or what date it actually is, all she has to go on are the events that have taken place in history so far and the location that she has arrived at. Shona had received the best education going in modern day Scotland and speaks a couple of languages fluently. The only thing is these include modern sayings that are common place every day in Scotland but not at all in a bygone Russia.
Shona soon meets one of my favourite characters in the book, Nanny with her constant knitting. These two just bounced off each other with dialogue that was pure magic. Nanny had brought up shy, beautiful and orphaned heiress Lidia Ivanovna, now in her early twenties and being groomed to marry, but of course there was the family secret, we haven’t to talk about the family secret of course.
I loved Shona and I am sure the idea of nipping in helping someone to make the right decision and slipping away without leaving her mark on ‘the time line’ must have been part of her training, but if it was then she hide it well. Lets just say she can draw an audience both with a crowd and some pretty important Russian Royals! Not to mention the increasing body count that seems to be rising since her arrival.
Olga Wojtas has put together such lively and colourful characters in this story which has been a real pleasure to read. I hope that Shona will be making more appearances in future books on her time travelling adventures real soon. Just love the book cover too.
I wish to thank Saraband Publishing for a copy of this book which I have honestly reviewed.

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 1 out of 5]

This one got off to a good start, but went downhill quickly. Our heroine, Shona, was both entirely unlikable and unbelievable. Another reviewer wrote that this is supposed to be a farce, but the story took itself too seriously for me to read it that way.

Shona was educated at Miss Blaine's School for Girls, and has an ensuing hatred for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Shona insists that she, like all other students from Miss Blaine's, is the créme de la créme by virtue of her education, but she proceeds in being so exceedingly stupid I'm surprised Miss Blaine herself did not revoke her diploma. Miss Blaine appears in the library where Shona works and invites her to time travel to 19th century Russia for an unspecified mission. (This isn't the unbelievable part.) Though Miss Blaine quips about the sin of assumption, Shona assumes so much about everything and everyone it becomes exhausting. Maybe stop talking for a wee second, dearie, and listen?

Dear Shona duly studies everything she can about 19th century Russia, except for the important things like how to tell into what year she is thrust (evidently, she knows nothing about telling time via fashion--and wears Doc Martens and mulitway bras like a fool!). Shona is more concerned with "raising the feminist consciousness" of the folks around her, evidently wholly ignorant of the state of feminist thinking in 19th century Russia, as if she hadn't studied the time or place at all. I was reminded of something Isak Dinesen wrote in Out of Africa about expecting Western ideas like democracy, individualism, et c. to appeal to people who had not been educated in the West--how could she expect them to be intellectually Western when they had no knowledge of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, much less Locke and Hume? Folks from 19th century Russia can hardly be expected to be at a 21st century level of wokeness just because anything else offends Shona's sensibilities. Similarly, Shona claims to be a redoubtable Scottish egalitarian, railing against serfdom and such, but she views herself as superior to everyone around her, especially noblewomen her own age.

Blissfully skippable.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crème de la crème...

Shona McMonagle works in an Edinburgh library, putting to good use the excellent education she received at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls. Woe betide anyone who requests a copy of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, though – That Book, as Shona calls it, which she believes so misrepresented all that the School stood for. Being a middle-aged woman of steady nerves and common sense, Shona takes it in her stride when the supposedly long-dead Miss Blaine shows up in the library one day. Miss Blaine is not dead, however – she is a time-traveller, and wants to recruit Shona to her elite team of people who travel through time on missions to sort out problems. Soon Shona finds herself transported back to Russia, sometime in the early 19th century, where she believes her task is to save young Lidia Ivanovna from marriage to an elderly general, and instead make sure she marries the super gorgeous and charming Sasha. But, despite her encyclopaedic knowledge of history, her multilingual abilities, and her skill in martial arts, sometimes Shona gets things wrong...

Well, this is a total hoot! Olga Wojtas has created a wonderful character in the astonishingly talented but oddly myopic Shona, a woman who can do just about anything but fails to see the blindingly obvious even when it's right under her nose. The book cover mentions Wodehouse, and I see that comparison – Shona's Russia has the same unreal quality as Wodehouse's England, though not nearly as idyllic, and there's no doubt the book had me laughing as much as Wodehouse does. But I'd be more tempted to compare it to Blackadder – based on 'proper' history grossly exaggerated for comic effect and with a central character who is somewhat apart from the others. The Russian aristocracy reminded me very much of Queenie and her courtiers, with their total disregard for their inferiors and their general level of silliness, while Shona's chief serf Old Vatrushkin could easily have stood in for Baldrick. But Shona Fergusovna (as she calls herself in Russia) is much nicer than Blackadder – her ambition is to help everyone around her, even if they don't particularly want to be helped.

The plot involves a whole host of ghastly deaths but it's fine, because nobody cares and they mostly deserve it. One of the most fun aspects is that, unlike in most crime fiction where the point is for the reader to be way behind the fictional 'tec and surprised by the solution, in this one, the reader sees what's going on long, long before Shona catches on. Since we're being told the story by Shona in first person (past tense), we are treated to her constant misinterpretations of the events around her. This could have been annoying if Shona had been less likeable, but it's her desire to see the best in people and her kindness that lead her astray time and again, plus she's very funny, sometimes even intentionally. She's also a feisty feminist, who can't help trying to spread political correctness everywhere she goes, much to the utter bafflement of everyone she meets, who seem to think their society is fine the way it is. It's beautifully done – Wojtas manages to make fun of non-politcal correctness and political correctness at one and the same time.

Then there's the Scottishness – such joy! So many Scottish writers abandon their Scottishness, understandably, so that their books can appeal to a wider audience. I sympathise, even though it annoys me. Wojtas instead makes a feature of it, and does so brilliantly. There's no dialect at all that would make it hard for non-Scots to read, but lots of specifically Scottish references and figures of speech that had me howling. Any book that includes a reference to Jimmy Logan, a John Knox joke, a running gag on Jock Tamson and his bairns, and more than one side-swipe at the Glasgow-Edinburgh rivalry will work for me! But it will also work for non-Scots, because Wojtas lightly provides just enough information to explain the references, so that the jokes still deliver.

Great fun! I hope Wojtas is working hard on the follow-up because I really don't want to wait too long to meet up with Shona again...

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Saraband.

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[Jan Polep · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, a time-travelling librarian from modern day Scotland lands in 1800's Tsarist Russia with one week to solve an unknown problem and try to not die in the process. This is comic crime novel at its finest...not a graphic novel...but the body counts are huge and so are the language gags. I never figured out what year it was, I picked the wrong villain, and I was totally bummed when the book ended. Can't wait to read about this plucky librarian's next mission.

[Renita D'Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved loved loved this! Very funny, tongue in cheek, irreverent, well researched and wonderfully original.

[Maine Colonial · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had just finished reading an intense book and wanted a palate-cleanser book to read. This was the perfect choice for a light, refreshing interlude.

Scottish librarian Shona McMonagle is, well, shimmered is one way of putting it, from Edinburgh to Tsarist Russia, sometime in the 19th century. All newspaper publishing has been suppressed by the Tsar and she is reduced to using historical clues to try to pinpoint what year she is in. Conveniently, Shona is deposited to a large and luxurious house that comes equipped with Old Vatrushkin, a young (despite the name), strong, brilliant and loyal coachman.

Oddly, whoever is in charge of the time travel program has failed to tell Shona exactly what her mission is, just that she is apparently to help Lidia Ivanovna, an heiress who is coming out into society. Shona uses all her considerable skills and ingenuity to make a place for herself in Russian society, and she soon comes to believe that her mission is to ensure that Lidia marries the right man for her. The path to romance, however, is strewn with murder, mayhem and some very catty society matrons.

This book reminded me of Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St. Mary’s series, in that there is a mix of history, adventure, danger and silliness. If anything, this book is even sillier than Taylor’s books, and that’s because as talented as Shona is, she is always getting the wrong end of the stick when it comes to people. If you’ve ever been frustrated by not figuring out the clues in a mystery, don’t worry. You will be way, way ahead of Shona. After a little while it just became part of the entertainment that she keeps getting everything about people so completely wrong.

The author’s note refers to “future missions” for Shona. I’ll look forward to reading about them.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shona McMonagle is a librarian in Edinburgh, product, she proudly states, of the finest education in the world. (Sadly, that dreadful Muriel Sparks maligned her school in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.") She's been recruited to use time travel to right historical wrongs, and is excited by her first assignment, which is--well, that's awkward. She hasn't been told what the assignment is, or what year it is, exactly, but she's in early 19th century Russia, and she knows her errand involves beautiful young Lidia, the wealthiest heiress in society. She only has one week to do--something. Don't make assumptions, Shona is told, but she continues to make them, some screamingly wrong, and some that jeopardize her as well as her mission.

[Claire · Rating 1 out of 5]

The narrator of this book is insufferable. At least once a page of this 246 page book she mentions how smart or clever she is, what random bit of trivia she can pull out of the ether, or any number of physical acts, despite being around 60, and yet she misses the entire twist of the plot. A twist, by the way, which is written so obvious and heavy handed that the fact that the narrator misses it entirely wholly discredits her "best education in the world." I only finished this book out of spite.

[Tasula · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess no matter how many times the heroine exclaims about her exceptional education, it didn't help her develop any common sense. I also guess that the heroine's blind admiration of an iffy character was just a plot device, but I found it annoying. Also found annoying her allowing a lazy maid to shirk work. However, the ending was quite nice, and there was an endearing puppy.

[Dee-Cee It's all about the books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firstly I’d just like to mention what a gorgeous cover the book has. This would be the sort of cover that would really grab my attention if I was browsing a book shop.
I have to admit this is completely different to my normal read’s, when I read the description and there was a mention of time travel my interest was piqued and it sounded like a fun read. I wasn’t wrong.
Shona McMonagle, fifty-something librarian from Morningside, Edinburgh is very proud to be a former pupil of the Marcia Blaine’s School for Girls and takes great pride in the schools reputation and her education. When Shona is tasked by none other than Marcia Blaine herself to travel back in time she grabs the opportunity with both hands and it’s not long before she finds herself in 19th century Moscow with only one week to complete her mission, but what is Shona’s mission and will she complete it in time.
What a wonderful character Shona is, I instantly took to her and what a refreshing change to have an older protagonist in the story. Well educated, Shona brings her charm and wit to Russia and it’s not long before she has commandeered the band at a failing party and has the guests up dancing to the Gay Gordons. Shona’s very much for equal rights being a 21st Scottish woman so it’s funny to see how she interacts with life in the 19th century and manages to get her way of thinking across to some of the characters.
The story is filled with larger than life characters, described so wonderfully by the author that they almost jump right off the page. One of my favourites along with Shona would be Lidia’s knitting Nanny who constantly has a pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool in hand. Another I have to mention is loyal Old Vatrushkin who takes his job as Shona’s driver extremely seriously and over the week proves to be a great help to Shona.
Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Golden Samover is absolutely filled to the brim, there is so much in this story that I think it will appeal to many. It’s full of humour, real laugh out loud humour where I found myself snorting at times, it has suspense, fantastic characters and the authors descriptions throughout the book had me transported back in time.
This is definitely a book I’ll be recommending, it’s really a fantastic cosy crime that you really don’t want to put down, certainly a page turner and I’m so looking forward to seeing where Shona’s takes us next.

[Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is utterly bonkers. The basic premise is that Shona Ferguson, a librarian in her mid-fifties in Edinburgh's Morningside, is sent back in time to some point in 19th-century Russia by Miss Marcia Blaine founder of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls. (The early part of the book covers the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie references.) Shona has no real idea what her mission is, simply that she has one.

Anyway, she ends up in the middle of serfdom Russia, although she can't work out an exact date. Is she to facilitate a romance between Lidia Ivanova and the dashing Sasha, or is she to work out if there's any foul play in the mysterious deaths of some of those around her? Is her own life in danger?

All this she has to work out while navigating the Scottish and Russian linguistic and cultural differences. But she does have, as her faithful assistant, "Old Vatrushkin", her own all-purpose serf comedy turn who is, naturally, not old at all.

More than that I won't say for fear of revealing too much. And the reader does have to concentrate quite a bit to avoid getting lost. There's a lot of 'Edinburgh' humour, and there are many historical and cultural jokes that I really enjoyed but might annoy others. Suspend belief on page one. But I laughed out a lot, though, which is always good, and it's a short book.

It's good to see this sort of genuinely funny book being given shelf-space. It belongs in the same category as James Hamilton-Paterson's "Cooking with Fernat Branca" (Gerald Samper and Shona Ferguson share a degree of insufferability, actually) and even a couple of my own novels. So I'm bound to like it.

[Chrystyna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar by Olga Wojtas - still thinking but mostly good

For those that haven't read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, Ms Brodie is a teacher at the, fictional, Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh and her girls are the creme de la creme!

Shona Aurora McMonagle is fiftysomething Librarian in Morningside and also an ex pupil. One day Miss Blaine contacts her (which is something of a surprise as she has been dead for many years) to go on a "mission" and Shona finds herself transported to 19th century Russia with seven days to solve a problem, but first she has to work out what the problem actually is.

Now this should be right up my street and I think it probably was - certainly I read 200 pages in a day to finish it. However, I found Shona mildly annoying, especially her wilful inability to see what was going on despite it being patently obvious to everyone else.

Still, it was an entertaining romp which required very little thought or concentration which was just what I needed after a more challenging read.

#review

[Amy Rosenkoetter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I would have enjoyed this much better had I been in a better frame of mind to read it. There's a lot to like in this book. It is highly intellectual and full of wit and hilarious antics. Shona's escapades and her self-delusion are priceless. If this were an episode of Star Trek, she would be in direct violation of the Prime Directive dozens of times over. Thank goodness no such restriction impedes her mission.

She is a brilliant woman but has rather a blind spot concerning herself. Her deductions, while individually sound, do not quite add up to the proper sum in her head, leading to excellent mayhem and close calls. As another reviewer said, the lady is a hoot.

[Sonia Schoenfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were several things that irked me abt this book. In no particular order
- what's up with the samovar? It wasn't a major character
- the main character was arrogant and totally missed what was going on
- for someone who hate The Prime of amiss Jean Brodie, she sure brought it up a lot
- I would have liked a better introduction to the main character
- we never did find out what year it was

That being said, the book was quirky, funny sometimes, and even a little campy. I loved the picture of the main character posing as a princess in Doc Martens.theres room for improvement here, maybe a second book in the series will do the trick.

[Nancy H · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was quite a unique story. It involves time travel from Scotland to mid-18th-century Russia, a woman who is adept at almost everything (who is the time traveler), and so many misunderstandings that the whole thing is definitely just like a drawing-room farce, except that it is not all in a drawing room. It is so ludicrous and funny that the reader laughs out loud at the various situations in which the characters find themselves. It is definitely a different kind of story, but very entertaining.

[Anetq · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not normally my genre: a funny combination of a timetraveller from a (more or less) current Edinburgh sent to the first half of the 1800s Russia to solve a murder (which quickly turns into more). It's not just the timetravel, thats not my genre, but also the cutesy English Girls School educated naive librarian on a mission... Anyway I bought this at Bloody Scotland, as I heard the author read from it, and found it quite hilarious - and it is a fun read, even if it it also very silly really :)

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

It doesn't matter that the reader catches on to what is happening before the main character or that the story devolves into silliness at times. This book is pure fun. With an element of Quantum Leap (time travel and not a clue as to what the goal is) and some Amelia Bedelia (misconstrued idioms), this story is delightful entertainment.
When Shona McMonagle finds herself in Russia somewhere in the 1800s she knows she has a job to do and only has a week to do it. Unfortunately, she does not know exactly what. Also, she is definitely educated on many subjects but is not good at seeing the forest for the trees. Misunderstandings and a bit of chaos pepper this tale as well as sprinklings of erudite vocabulary. This was wonderful escapism.

[Helen Hollick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has received a Discovering Diamonds Review:
Helen Hollick
founder #DDRevs
"... It is particularly easy to warm to Old Vatrushkin [his] intellect has something of Jeeves about it, while the author – who thanks Tolstoy along with Muriel Spark in her acknowledgements – has a fine ear for wordplay and the telling simile."

[Edwin Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun and original novel. Fans of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie will appreciate the references to that novel and Spark’s style, but any reader will love the wit and terrific character in Shona, a confidently obtuse librarian sent to imperial Russia to stop murder. That Shona can’t see most of the clues right in front of her nose is only half the fun!

[Lisa of Hopewell]

I learned of this book via this blog post https://portobellobookblog.com/2018/0...

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

see book 2 for my review - Miss Blaine's prefect and the vampire menace

[Gretchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very lighthearted farce of a time travel mystery set in Tsarist Russia, but with a very Scottish flair.

[JB · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was goofy and fun. Lighthearted read, Shona is sent on a mission to Russia, which she doesn't get, makes assumptions, and gets herself into trouble in the year of ?... She haplessly flouts around into solving the mission, happy ending for all.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun adventure featuring a snarky, time-traveling librarian.

[Moushumi Ghosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun historical and time travelling romp through Tsarist Russia. A librarian from Miss Marcia Blane's school, the school in Muriel Spark's "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" is sent on a mission which had to be worked out turns out to be adventurous week long trip for Shona Fergusovna. After many red herrings, finally all is well.

[Katy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Em, but mixed about this. I could hear echoes of Spark and Brodie in this story but did find the main character, Shona Fergusovna a little irritating in her total lack of seeing what was right in front of her!