About the Book

On the day they are born, each Swift is brought before the sacred Family Dictionary. They are given a name and a definition, and it is assumed they will grow up to match. Unfortunately, Shenanigan Swift has other ideas.

So what if her relatives all think she’s destined to turn out as a troublemaker, just because of her name? Shenanigan knows she can be whatever she wants – pirate, explorer or even detective.

Which is lucky, really, because when one of the Family tries to murder Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude, someone has to work out whodunit.

With the help of her sisters and cousin, Shenanigan grudgingly takes on the case, but more murders, a hidden treasure and an awful lot of suspects make thing seriously complicated.

Can Shenanigan catch the killer before the whole household is picked off? And in a Family where definitions are so important, can she learn to define herself?

About the Author

Beth Lincoln was raised in a former Victorian railway station in the North of England. Her childhood fears included porcelain dolls, the Durham panther, and wardrobes that looked at her funny. She grew neither tall nor wise, and never learned to play an instrument – but she did write stories, a bad habit that has persisted to this day.

When she isn’t writing, Beth is woodcarving, or making a mess of her flat, or talking the nearest ear off about unexplained occurrences. Her favourite things include ghosts, crisps, and weird old words like bumbershoot and zounderkite. The Swifts is Beth’s debut novel. It grew out of her love of words, the gleeful gothic, and classic murder mysteries. She lives in Newcastle upon Tyne with her partner and hopefully, by the time you are reading this, a dog.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/bethatintervals

Instagram: http://instagram.com/bethatintervals

What I Thought

I absolutely loved this. It was such a fun read, a cross between Lemony Snicket with the humour and vivid characterisation of Skulduggery Pleasant. The artwork by Claire Powell also brings the characters even more to life and I can totally see this book as a cartoon feature film.

The Swifts are a hodge podge family who all have name bestowed upon them and even more than most of us are then set up to live up to that name. Our protagonist is Shenanigan Swift and she spends the book trying to figure out if her name fits, and if she wants it to. There’s also a tender sub plot of a non binary character choosing their own name and I loved how author Beth never shared their deadname. 

The sisterly relationship between Felicity, Phenomena and Shenanigan is also at the core of this and I loved how this developed throughout the story, which takes place just over the course of a few days. 

And of course then we have the murder, mystery, mischief and mayhem including the family reunion and hunt for buried treasure. This is cleverly plotted and revealed with some wonderful red herrings sprinkled throughout. 

The giant game of Scrabble to the Death was so madcap and something I will consider fondly. 

I’m hoping that there might be more Swift tales to be told. After all we don’t get to meet the girl’s parents in this one. Please sign me up for any future blog tours! 

But did this book live up to its name? Well, I certainly raced through it and you have to be swift to work out who the culprit is. 

Thanks to the publisher Puffin Books and Bee at Kaleidoscopic Book Tours for the gifted copy. This is my honest and personal review. Do check out the rest of the blog tour to see what everyone else thought.