Reviews

Black Is the Colour of My True Love's Heart by Ellis Peters

nyarasha's review against another edition

3.0

Entertaining, pretty prose, though it had a quite guessable ending to me.

cimorene1558's review against another edition

5.0

One of my favourites, partly because I love the kind of folk music it is partly about.

kindleandilluminate's review against another edition

3.0

Black is the Colour of My True Love's Heart has all the quintessentially Felsian elements - a murder mystery that isn't, quite, and that unspools slowly and gently right at the end; lyrical and languorously focused prose; strong themes of decorous convention vs uncivilized purity of emotion; and a preoccupation with one of Ellis Peters's own non-murderous pet interests. In this case, it's folk music - or ballads, as she lets the long-haired singer Liri Palmer emphasize for her. But the story is, as always, sweetly tragic, if rather more overtly foreshadowed and thus quickly predictable here than usual, and after there was no George at all in Piper on the Mountain, I was glad to have him back in a central role. (Fingers crossed Bunty gets a proper appearance in the next one.)

singinglight's review

4.0

When I started this book and found that it was going to be about folk singers in the 1960s, I winced. I’ve read several mysteries where young people of that era figure and even if the author treats them with some kindness, it’s always that heavy-handed “oh those silly dears” kindness. Well, I did Ellis Peters a wrong. I think she must have been something of a folk song enthusiast herself (or maybe I should say ballad–she seems to prefer that term). I kind of called the twist, but I read her for two things: the characters and the description of the Shropshire landscape. The characters in this were well-drawn. And Dom was in it! I love Dom. So, yay. (Jan 2010)

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This is becoming one of my favorite Felse stories. It's sweet and bitter, beautiful and tragic. A lot like the music it describes. (Aug. 2010)