Summer holidays are the perfect time to read books, especially books with weird or unappealing titles that you don’t feel like reading the rest of the year. With lots of time on your hands, you can let yourself relax and enjoy a book without the pressure to like it from the title page itself otherwise put it down in favour doing your homework.

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, The Mysterious Howling is one such title that seems intriguing but not too appealing. But I am glad I picked it up to read it, as I ended up enjoying it more than I had expected.

It is the first book of a series by Maryrose Wood, meant for children of middle grades onwards, that seems a bit Jane Austin-ish in terms of its setting.

The setting is an English manor, Ashton Place, where the heroine Penelope Lumley, a 15-year-old orphan who recently passed out from an academy for poor children as a governess, lands her first job. And the job is to take care, rather tame, three children — the Incorrigibles, 10-year-old Alexander, seven-year-old Beowulf and four-year-old Cassiopeia — who have been, it literally seems, raised by wolves! They were found in the forest by the lord of the manor, Lord Ashton, and he wants Penelope to civilise them.

The story is very intriguing, funny and full of interesting twists. The prim and proper Penelope is excited about her first job and getting to live in such a grand setting for the first time, but her three charges are a nightmare to handle.

They don’t talk, they growl and howl! Used to living in the wild and chasing squirrels up the trees, learning table manners, poetry and Latin isn’t something the children take kindly to.

There are a number of mysteries lurking alongside the main plot of the grooming of the kids, such as who are the parents of these three kids, why does it seem that they are under threat of some kind, and why has Lord Ashton taken them under his care?

Not all the mysteries are solved at the cliff-hanger ending, urging readers to turn to the next book in the series to learn more. And this is just what I intend to do!

Published in Dawn, Young World, July 16th, 2016