Beverly Gray's Island Mystery

This is the book that started it all for me. I was up in the Blue Mountains looking at the second hand book stores. My favourite book store there has a vintage children's book room. One of those great library rooms where the book shelves run from floor to ceiling and there is a wooden ladder to get to the higher shelved books. This was the first time I had visited this store (though I have been a number of times since)

I don't know what attracted me to pick up this book. Other than it ticked all the boxes, it was a girl's mystery series, it had interesting artwork cover (hey Beverly is even wearing the classic 1950's pearls) and it was a bargain at $6.50, so I thought even if it was really bad it didn't break the bank. Though I must admit I did think it was going to be the kind of book that I liked.

Beverly Gray books are really a soap opera, (kind of brings back memories of watching Days Of Our Lives during my Uni years)
if you are going to read the books out of order though I must say this is probably an ideal candidate as it is a rare occasion and I mean RARE that Beverly isn't surrounded by her huge array of friends. Yes Beverly is mainly alone for a solid proportion of this story, which for me made a great introduction to her without the confusion of who is who. The reason for this is that this is the book after Beverly Gray's Secret and at the start of this book ( being a follow on from the last book) the Susabella has gone missing. This single event removed Roger, Jim, Terry, Lois, Shirley and Lenora from the story forefront and allowed for the reader to be introduced to Beverly's job as a reporter, her love interest Larry and her fellow reporter and rival Kay, all without the usual large character numbers of other stories in the series.

The Story also has Beverly going back to Vernon College so it gave great insight into Beverly's past for someone who hadn't read the stories of her college years. For her undercover work at the college Beverly takes on the guise of Annabelle Green, niece of Professor Green so that she can snoop around more easily then she would be able to do as herself Beverly Gray, Reporter.

I don't think I could of had a better introduction to Beverly Gray by starting any other book first. I got a glimpse of all her friends without them being all in my face all at once so to speak (I think I would of dreaded starting the series with one of the stories on The Susabella as I'm sure all the passengers would of been hard to keep up with. I also got an introduction to Vernon and what Beverly loved about it as she reminisces about the place she went to college whilst solving her latest mystery, and a good solid mystery it is, the book really kept my interest, and definitely left me wanting more Beverly Gray books. In fact she very quickly became my absolute favourite character after that first read.

It isn't until Chapter 15 of a 17 chapter book that our Susabella passengers show up in the story. The main plot continues right to the end of the book also, which isn't always the case with a Beverly Gray book, I am often half way through a Beverly Gray book going "okay they finished the main plot, so what now?"

This book also doesn't run into the start of the next book in the series as some do, its end with Beverly and Lenora yearning to get home, a place I still didn't know much about, still I didn't really know at this stage just how much travel Beverly Gray did and that she wasn't home a lot of the time.
Loved this book that started the journey for me.