July 2026

This month’s gathering of the Welston Book Worms took place at the Bookish Barista. The roll call—Sonia Featherstone (Chair), Constance Dilmore, Alfred Bushwell, Gerard Savin, Joe Halton, Eleanora Reingold, and yours truly—found us all present and correct for the first time in some weeks.

The meeting started a little later than usual and an hour before closing time. Susan Crow was clearing the chill cabinet as we arrived, which focused minds wonderfully; nothing sharpens a book club’s attention quite like the threat of a short meeting and the question of what happens to the unsold flapjacks.

Alfred’s return was met with general delight. Everyone had felt his absence last month.

July’s book was Alice Bell’s Grave Expectations, in which freelance medium Claire Hendricks—trailed everywhere by the ghost of her dead school friend Sophie, seventeen forever and furious about it—investigates a murder at a country house party while fending off Sophie’s running commentary.

Sonia opened by asking whether anyone had solved the mystery. Nobody had.

Gerard declared the book “properly funny,” which was echoed around the table, though several members noted that Sophie’s vocabulary had rather tested their cosiness. Constance put it more bluntly: ‘I didn’t mind a teenage ghost with an attitude. I minded a teenage ghost who swears like a docker.’ Alfred, who hadn’t enjoyed the book for the same reason, was characteristically generous about it, which he put down to “a generational difference.”

Alfred wasn’t finished, though. He admitted that the non-binary character, Alex, had taken him a chapter or two to settle into. ‘Once I stopped trying to assign others to every “they,”’ he said, ‘it read perfectly naturally.’ Several others confessed to the same initial stumble.

Joe, who had read the blurb but not the book, announced that the Claire-and-Sophie setup reminded him strongly of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). ‘The one from 2000, with the guy who can only see his dead private detective partner.’ Alfred lit up and pointed out the original series came out in 1969, ‘And was rather better for it.’

Sonia then asked, ‘If Sophie can see other ghosts, why didn’t she simply ask one of them who the murderer was?’

Joe, delighted to have found an angle requiring no actual reading, likened it instantly to Lord of the Rings: ‘Why didn’t the eagles just fly the ring to Mordor?’ I pointed out that this plot hole has never once stopped me enjoying either the book or the films, a position nobody asked for, and nobody acknowledged.

Constance, who rarely passes up the chance to correct the group, did so this time to general approval rather than the usual groans: ‘The book does address it,’ she said, ‘with one of the early ghosts telling Claire flatly, “But you didn’t ask.”’

A small silence followed.

From there the meeting tipped into a full debate on whether you can fairly compare a murder mystery’s logic to an epic fantasy’s. Sonia attempted to restore order. Eleanora, sensing an opportunity, called a vote instead.

The motion, that Grave Expectations, plot hole notwithstanding, was an enjoyable read was passed unanimously and just in time. Moments later, Susan arrived with a tray filled with eclairs, cream horns and glazed donuts.