Tag Archives: juvenile fiction

Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease – 20 Books of Summer 2023

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Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease was first published in 1940 but my copy is a Puffin reprint which was published in 1965.

This book begins in Cumberland where there are a lot of skirmishes around the Scotland/England border, but it’s the local landowner Sir Philip who is causing the villagers big problems as he’s enclosing the land which had been used by the villagers for grazing their cattle on. The land grab has huge consequences for the locals who are already living a hand to mouth existence. They decide to break down Sir Philip’s wall  but Sir Philip and his men are about and Peter Brownrigg can’t resist the temptation to throw a stone at him, unfortunately he’s spotted doing it and a gun is fired at him, narrowly missing Peter’s head. The next day Sir Philip’s men come looking for Peter and he has to run away, if he’s caught he could be hanged!

London is the place to aim for and he falls in with another runaway lad on the way. They decide to stick together and look for work. They get taken on as apprentice actors in a travelling theatre group.  Of course it turns out to be William Shakespeare’s  company and the youngsters get involved in a dangerous intrigue involving the politics of  Elizabeth’s court.

This is the second book I’ve read recently which involves William Shakespeare and his company of players, even so this was a really good read.

I, Spy by Rhian Tracey

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I, Spy by Rhian Tracey is aimed at younger readers. The setting is Bletchley Park, beginning in 1939 as the oh-so ‘hush hush’ decryption centre is just being built and staffed.

Robyn is just 13 years old and she lives within Bletchley Park as her parents work there. She’s really interested in animals and nature so it’s an ideal environment for her, but as she won’t be allowed to travel in and out of Bletchley to go to school she’s told that she won’t be going back to school. She’s given an apprenticeship – learning to look after the carrier pigeons that are so important for delivering secret messages.

She’s quite pleased with it all although she’ll miss her schoolfriends, but then she makes friends with Ned who visits BP with his father for work purposes on a daily basis and things look up. Then Mary, a friend from school gets a job delivering messages within the sprawling Bletchley grounds.

The three friends get up to some high jinx. Robyn is sure that there’s a high profile spy within Bletchley and she’s determined to get to the bottom of it.

This was an enjoyable read although I found that I had to suspend my disbelief at times, particularly as Robyn was expecting her father to start giving her driving lessons on her 13th birthday!! Of course she would have to be 17 before that could happen. Her father didn’t keep his promise, but it just seemed such a strange thing for a 13 year old to expect, especially back then. I can see that this book will be popular with youngsters although I doubt if any children were allowed near the place.

My thanks to the publisher Piccadilly Press for giving me the opportunity to read a digital copy of this book via Netgalley. I,Spy will be published on 2nd, March.

I enjoyed the setting which was very recognisably Bletchley Park, if you want to see what it looks like nowadays you can see some photos I took there fairly recently here, here and here.