I think I'd quite like to live in a Golden Age Murder Mystery

[PolkadotsAndMoonbeams]

Other than the actual murder.

But I quite fancy living in a big house and having a dashing suitor called Henry who motors down at the weekend. We'd play tennis or throw drinks parties, and neighbours would come for afternoon tea.

There'd probably be an unmarried aunt (possibly with a tragic backstory) and a terribly clever younger sister at Girton.

At some point I'd probably have my hair bobbed and shock the aforementioned neighbours while my mother said "it's a phase these modern young girls go through".

My flat is doing a good job of standing in for a big draughty house (I'm writing this from bed under several blankets) so really I think I'm
partway there already!

What book would you disappear into if you could?

Probably Anne of Green Gables OP. There is a bit too much hard work and church-going, but I think living on Prince Edward Island, and growing up to be a writer would make up for it.

The other books I'd quite like to live in are Shirley Hughes' Alfie stories. Their family life seems so idyllic.

I always wanted to go to Mallory Towers.
When I was 10 my friend and I made a pact that we'd ask our parents to send us there if we failed our 11+ (this was back in the 70s).

I always wanted to be Georgina worsley - everyone always falling in love with me & lots of servants to act on my slightest whim.

You’re assuming that you’re above stairs. Much more likely (statistically speaking) that you’d be below stairs schlepping for 16 hours a day to facilitate the Bright Young Thing with bobbed hair up above.

And still end up murdered.

I'm with you OP, I'd go for the murder mystery. I'm a bit old to be bobbing my hair, but I could probably be the younger 40-ish wife of a retired colonel. I would wear very bright red lipstick, and I would say things waspishly. I've never said anything waspish in my life, but I'd like to try.

Shoebiz beat me to it - you might be the maid described as plain and common, whose entire dialogue is written with dropped aitches or in some sort of peasanty Devon burr. You’d be absurdly impressed by the detectives manservant and spill all the gossip for some snogging behind the scullery door and then he’d feck off back to London.

I’ll be a typist at Bletchley Park, get taken dancing by a dashing pilot, Anthony, when he’s home on leave (Our fathers were at school together, and we used to play together on the beach during summer holidays in Devon).

He’ll get killed, though. After the war, I’ll move to London and meet Giles in a book shop. It will turn out that we’d been at Bletchley together-he’s awfully clever-but he’d always been to shy to talk to me. His sister, who lives in Hampstead, invites us for dinner and he proposes on the edge of the Heath before walking me to the bus stop.

A Sarra Manning novel where I’ve got a slightly sulky lover, I live in London and frequent roof top bars and have a designer handbag.

BlueBrush, I’d like to be you too. Neat whiskey from 11am and the children away at school?

@Nancy I’m imangining Giles to look like my great uncle Herbert, handsome as they come with round glasses and a slight wave to his hair.

Can i come live with you? Im happy to be a cousin who has returned from being abroad from her mysterious civil service job. Once I'm something like a frightfully independent female and neither murdered or a murderer, I'm happy out

But as it's the OP's fantasy, then she can be the Bright Young Thing with bobbed hair

I think I'd like to be in The Chandos Books series by Darnford Yates (I haven't read them for yonks and doubt there was a woman as a lead character!). They were very rich, had amazing cars, trusty and skilled manservants and they all set off for forrin parts in fictional middle European countries to rescue their stranded, aristocratic friends and their priceless treasures from dastardly villains! There was usually a jolly alpine-type inn with a jolly alpine innkeeper and some friendly and helpful 'locals'. (Most of the books were written in the inter-war period, WW1 & 2).

That's fine. She's the upcoming on. I'll have live the life she's about to head into. Being an old maid and all that.

Actually I don't mind being the unmarried aunt. But my tragic background lead me abroad. Whatever I am I have to have been abroad and had terribly interesting adventures.

I’d like to be Tuppence in Agatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence stories. Devoted, interesting husband, exciting life

As my name might suggest, I'd like to live in Jilly Cooper's Rutshire Chronicles... Hopefully without her much-loved yellow eyes, though. Who actually HAS yellow eyes??

As I’ve just been having a Sayers spree, I’ll be (post-being-tried-for-poisoning-her-lover) Harriet Vane. I get to have skin like honey, pay for ‘really inspired dressing’, solve mysteries, write, and test-drive Peter Wimsey, and discover if, under the quipping, monocle, and noblesse oblige, he’d really learned some tricks from his various opera singers and courtesans. I suspect he would drive me mad quite quickly, mind you. And I’d frame and fire Bunter.

Stalin had yellow eyes.

I love the golden age thing, then Wodehouse and Waugh as well, any recomendations are welcome. I'm also getting through Dorothy Sayyers at the moment, could definitely recommend- although some dodgy politics at times, much better characters than Agatha Christie.

Fab thread. How about Georgette Heyer's Regency? Though I'm sure I'd have been a tweeny maid.

Stalin and Antonia Forest’s insufferable Patrick Merrick, Patroclus.

Who inexplicably not only has two of the bevy of gorgeous blonde sisters next door in love with him, but also snogs the sexy French au pair.

Patrocios - loads of Golden Age Crime Queens. Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, Gladys Mitchell, Georgette Heyer wrote a few... Dorothy L really is the tops, but lots of good writers.

Really, I think I'd probably want to be in a Barbara Pym novel and live in Pimlico and go to church jumble sales and have good furniture, but I'm out of period, aren't I? I think I might want to be a younger and smarter version of Miss Climpson, aiding Lord Peter by going undercover and working in a clerical capacity but really investigating.

I'd be one of the Oxford dons in Gaudy Night. I'd take Harriet's successful writing career and London flat, but not sure I'd want Lord Peter, other than as an occasional dinner companion. The money would be nice, but the downside would be having to pretend to understand all those quotations, in however many different languages.