I really couldn't get in to this book. I found the stories to be unlike the traditional Agatha christie ones, sorry.

I knew I was going to enjoy this even before I started. 12 stories by 12 different author’s. What a gem, welcome back Miss Marple. To say I enjoyed the book immensely is an understatement. A must read ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Nice little addition to my Agatha Christie library, with some very different takes on the original Miss Marple.

I really enjoyed each author's own personal style when I can to including such a well-known character into their own stories, and it was great to see the inclusion of some familiar characters and locations.

I cannot say how much I enjoyed their mini homages to Agatha and Jane. As I said, a great addition to my own Agatha Christie Library!

Marple Twelve New Stories is a collection of short stories featuring Agatha Christie’s legendary detective Jane Marple, each written by one of the following bestselling authors; Naomi Alderman, Leigh Bardugo, Alyssa Cole, Lucy Foley, Elly Griffiths, Natalie Haynes, Jean Kwok, Val McDermid, Karen M. McManus, Dreda Say Mitchell, Kate Mosse
 and Ruth Ware.

Agatha Christie was the first author I read from the Adult section at the library. I loved the Miss Marple books and the old black and white Margaret Rutherford films and it’s her I pictured when I was reading these stories.

This was an enjoyable book, in just a few pages each story featured a new location (including some international travel funded by her nephew Raymond) a crime or murder, a Miss Marple investigation and of course the great reveal!

Recommended if you fancy some light, cosy crime. I enjoyed dipping in and out of it and still getting the satisfaction of a complete story in each sitting.

Thanks to HarperCollins UK HarperFiction for this digital copy through @netgalley

This review is available now on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/louisereads_uk

I enjoyed the majority of this book, but it did go on a bit. There were some stabs out stories and I’d recommend it if you’re a Marple and Agatha Christie fan!

12 stories, 12 authors.
Although I enjoyed the book, I felt there was a clear difference between 'Agatha Christie' herself, and these authors!! Some of the stories, could have been written by Christie, but I'm afraid others were not!! They were good stories in themselves, but, not in the mode of Agatha Christie! I was a little disappointed, as I'm a fan of Agatha Christie, but I felt it let me down a little, entirely my fault though, as I shouldn't have looked forward to it so much!!
I couldn't give less than four stars, as all the stories have their own merit, but not all in Agatha Christie style!!

Twelve contemporary authors pick up the mantle of Agatha Christie and reimagine Miss Marple in new settings. I have to admit I’m already biased since I absolutely adore every single Miss Marple story out there, and this book is no exception either. 

Some of the authors stayed very close to the originals and even brought in a few other characters we’ve met before. The Second Murder at the Vicarage was one of my favourite stories solely for the nostalgia. Other authors transported Miss Marple far from St. Mary Mead to luxury ships and tropical islands. Agatha Christie would have definitely enjoyed her journeys, as did I. Miss Marple doing Tai Chi in a park in Hong Kong was an image I didn’t know I needed in my life. 

The characters are put through various situations that are far more complex than anything Christie devised for hers. While this led to some beautiful stories, it also did lead to some known characters behaving quite differently from how they were originally presented. I did not consider this a problem until it affected Miss Marple herself. There were one or two stories which felt like generic mysteries with Miss Marple’s name merely tacked on. The stories themselves were incredibly fun, but perhaps not the best for this particular collection.

The writing was absolutely amazing, which is not surprising considering the calibre of the authors here. Leigh Bardugo's words in the very last story left me choked up: "Age is cruel, and crueller still to women. A woman becomes a ghost when she stops being worth looking at."—a sentiment Agatha Christie echoed, which led to the creation of Miss Marple in the first place. A fitting way to end the collection.

Miss Marple: Twelve New Stories is perfect for anyone who loves cosy mysteries. The book manages to offer some fresh takes on a well-loved and familiar character while staying true to the essence of Agatha Christie. I have no doubt everyone who reads this will find at least one story that speaks to them. 

What more could you ask for out of a book?

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

We have had new Poirot stories so it's great to have new Miss Marple tales. And it's a wonderful list of authors (Naomi Alderman, Leigh Bardugo, Elly Griffiths, Ruth Ware, Alyssa Cole and more) who have written short stories starring the observant and intuitive Jane Marple from the village of St Mary Mead. The book is great to dip in and pick a story, some are stronger than others but all in all a lovely book that makes a great present for an Agatha Christie fan. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

Some of my favourite authors in one book and I loved it!

I was worried about this book as I am always of the thought that the originals are the best and I love Agatha Christie books. However I was wrong to be worried.

I loved the fact that this was short stories and getting to experience different writing styles that were all brought together by one character was great!

I thoroughly encourage everyone to give this book a shot as it was such a nice read and I am definitely going to be ordering myself a copy of this gorgeous book when it comes out!!

If you like Agatha Christie then you're in for a treat. As a Christie fan I started this book with a little bit trepidation, but happily I needn't have worried as the stories were on whole pretty good. There was one set in America and written by an American author where Miss Marple told her family "I'm just going to wash up" in regards to preparing yo get ready to go out for the evening. It was quite jarring and annoying to "hear" such an American turn of phrase coming from a quintessential English lady, but the story in which it was set was quiet entertaining.
I also enjoyed the wide range of different settings for each story and the fact they weren't all just set in a quaint little village in England.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it.

Miss Marple, at first glance, just some old nosy, but endearing woman in St. Mary’s Meed. In reality, she is a warm, astute woman who isn’t anything to do with the police as such, but gets involved in solving all sorts of crimes and delivering her findings to the often unamused police who put up with her; after all, she is always right and knows how to track down the clues and gets the results.

Agatha Christie created around 25 stories surrounding her character - Miss Marple, all complete within themselves and can often be seen within collections or as solo books. They have also been created into tv dramas by at least 5 different actors playing her at various times. She is the ultimate “Queen of Crime!” A title that was bestowed upon her some time ago and is still true today. She has become the benchmark for cosy crime and the author, many of her contemporaries have also clearly studied, admired and been inspired by. The authors involved have all created their own novels and characters within their own right before this book emerged.

Each author, even though they have their original ideas, seems to have respect for Agatha Christie and Miss Marple. This nicely comes through when reading each story. I was excited to receive this book, but also had an air of trepidation as anyone might when other people write with such a well-known character, but that quickly fell away. Each author has their own spin on things, but each has got the essence of Agatha Christie’s writing down rather well. They have captured the personality of Miss Marple and her quirks and created contemporary, twisty crimes to solve. They’ve managed to retain that immersive quality of trying to guess whodunnit that each Christie story has.

It is a good book for people who either have a love of Miss Marple or to introduce and inspire people to read this and then delve into the original stories.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

I love Agatha Christie and Miss Marple so was really looking forward to reading this book.

Sadly it wasn't for me though. I didn't really enjoy the stories. The stories were very brief, and I didn't get into the characters as you were just starting to get to know them, and the story was over.

Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the ARC Copy of the book. My review is my own opinion.

I’ve always been an Agatha Christie fan. I love Marple so it was really refreshing to see so many different takes on the famous lady’s mysteries. Would recommend for anyone interested on a modern take, and further sneaky stories, of Miss Marple

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of twelve short stories featuring the much-loved Miss Marple, each written by a different contemporary author. Miss Marple travels widely across the globe and across the decades throughout the collection, with a twinkle in her eye and her knitting on her lap. As to be expected, some stories succeeded more than others but all are great fun and those which missed the mark for me were still entertaining, providing the added bonus of righteous indignation when they hadn’t quite caught Miss Marple as I think of her. Everyone will have their favourites from this collection. Mine included the opening story by Lucy Foley, and those by Ruth Ware, Naomi Alderman, Kate Mosse and Leigh Bargudo. Great fun! My thanks to Net Galley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an independent review.

For this collection of short stories the Christie Estate invited twelve well known women authors, each a Christie devotee, to contribute an original short story featuring Agatha Christie’s beloved amateur sleuth, Miss Jane Marple.
The contributors are an eclectic group, mainly crime and mystery writers along with others who have made their names in romance, fantasy and historical fiction.
I felt that the quality of the stories was high, though as always in short story collections there were some that had at a greater appeal for me. I especially enjoyed Lucy Foley’s ‘Evil in Small Places’, Kate Mosse’s ‘The Mystery of the Acid Soil’, and Val McDermid’s ‘The Second Murder at the Vicarage’.
The collection ends with a few details about each of the authors. As I was curious about the choices that each author made in crafting their stories, I would have loved a little introduction or afterword for each story, though that might have interrupted the flow from story to story.

I found this a fun tribute to Miss Marple that is bound to please Christie fans.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📚Book Review: Marple by Various Authors

My mum is a huge fan of Agatha Christie and was brought up on a rich diet Joan Hickson as Miss Marple on TV every Sunday evening. I have hugely fond memories of this and as an adult I’ve continued to enjoy Christie’s stories.

The problem is there are only so many of them and her brilliant characters definitely deserve to star in more mind boggling mystery tales. So I was very excited when I saw this collection of short stories. Miss Marple is brought back to life in 12 short stories by some of today’s highly regarded crime writers .

I had very high hopes for this book. However, it was a bit of a mixed bag for me. All of the stories were clever and well written, but only a few truly felt like they captured the essence of Christie’s Marple. A few were so good at this I could hear Joan Hickson reading the lines. Among the ones I really enjoyed are the stories by Val McDermid, Kate Mosse and Ruth Ware.

Perhaps I was missing the point with some that took Jane Marple out of her usual settings or her time period. I understand the appeal of putting a character in a different situation but it just didn’t work for me.

Having said that this is still a really enjoyable collection of short stories. The mysteries are all very well plotted and will test the little grey cells of even the most experienced cosy crime reader.

Just like visiting an old friend. Each story fills you with the nostalgia of reading a classic Agatha Christie for the first time. The greatest mystery writers of today pay tribute to the best of all time.

There are many today that may be introduced to Miss Marple for the first time through the book and those lucky few will discover the world of Agatha Christie. I am glad that authors today will buy tribute to those that inspired them. Excellent book for the Holidays.

This is a new collection of 12 new short stories written by various writers in the style of Agatha Christie all revolving around Miss Jane Marple. Quite a few are written in a modern setting but there are some still true to the original stories.

Featuring well known names from across the literary spectrum - including Leigh Bardugo, Lucy Foley and Val McDermid - this collection of short mysteries reimagines Agatha Christie's sleuth through a dozen different pairs of eyes and in different ways.

I’m a huge Agatha Christie fan and I adore Miss Marple so I was extremely excited to read the twelve new stories. I was also looking forward to reading how all these different authors were going to tackle the stories as they have such varied styles of writing their own books.
I came to the book with an open mind but also a hope that it was going to be good, so I had my expectations. I appreciate how hard it must be to try and write in a different style than you are use to and to live up to such a great and renowned author, but for me some of the stories were far off the mark. There were some of the stories that were wonderful - these were the ones that were true to Agatha Christie’s writing.

I thought all the stories were very well-written and all entertaining in their own way and I enjoyed most all of them in different ways.

Well worth a read.

I have to confess that I have not yet read a Miss Marple story by Agatha Christie so I am a poor judge as to whether these stories match the original. I chose to read this anthology because I love short stories and this had a wonderful diverse range of authors contributing to the collection.
After starting to read, I decided that I would better enjoy this on audiobook and purchased a copy. The audiobook enhanced the experience having a wide range of narrators who fleshed out the drama.
As a non reader of the original once I started reading I started wondering if this was in any way like the original - and began to feel that I was doing this the wrong way round in reading the imitations first!
I also started to wonder how a murder could be committed, investigated and solved within the format of a short story…Some of the stories managed this extremely well…whilst in some it felt rather hurried.
There are some incredible writers in this volume and if you can set aside comparison with the original they are enjoyable stories. I particularly enjoyed Kate Mouse who felt very authentic and Val McDermid who added a gorgeous humour to the story.
The book really highlights a wide range of writing styles even within the brief of writing a Miss Marple story and for me has achieved two things - I will definitely seek out some of the authors who I have not yet read and I will be purchasing some Miss Marple books and reading the original.

With very many thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins UK for my digital copy of this book.

I shamefully have read nothing by Agatha Christie, but have always been intrigued by their work. As a writer, I’m always trying to expand my horizons, and part of that is reading more short stories. I love so many of the authors in this collection, so I was excited to delve into this and discover something new.

I wasn’t disappointed. I loved every story and it has spurred me on to finally reading Agatha Christie’s novels. The stories themselves were all brilliantly written and captured the characters and atmosphere of the genre. I’m thrilled to have to have read this and I recommend the book to anyone looking for something different! Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher, for a chance to read and review this book.