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MITZI SZERETO is an author of multi-genre fiction and non-fiction, blogger for ERRANT RAMBLINGS: MITZI SZERETO’S WEBLOG and creator/presenter of MITZI TV, which covers "quirky" London. Her books include THRONES OF DESIRE: EROTIC TALES OF SWORDS, MIST AND FIRE; PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: HIDDEN LUSTS; RED VELVET AND ABSINTHE: PARANORMAL EROTIC ROMANCE; IN SLEEPING BEAUTY'S BED: EROTIC FAIRY TALES; GETTING EVEN: REVENGE STORIES; and DYING FOR IT: TALES OF SEX & DEATH. Mitzi has pioneered erotic writing workshops in the UK and mainland Europe, teaching from the Cheltenham Festival of Literature to the Greek islands. She's also lectured in creative writing at several British universities. She’s been featured in the Sunday Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Times, Observer, Toronto Star, Company Magazine, The London Paper, and Family Circle and on Bravo UK TV, Telecinco TV 5 Madrid, Talk Radio Europe, Newstalk Ireland, FM4 ORF Vienna and BBC Radio. Her anthology Erotic Travel Tales 2 is the first erotica anthology to feature a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
TEDDY TEDALOO is a celebrity teddy bear, trendsetter, world traveler, and the production assistant extraordinaire/co-star of the web TV channel MITZI TV. Widely popular in social media circles such as Facebook and Twitter, he’s known for his entertaining commentary and opinions as well as being an advocate for animal welfare. He lives (and goes) wherever Mitzi lives (and goes). Normal for Norfolk is his first novel.
Reviewed by Fiona Ingram for Readers' Favorite
Someone is murdering the pub landlords of Norfolk! Thelonious T. Bear, ursine photojournalist, leaves behind the big city life of London to take an assignment in the Norfolk countryside, where he hopes to find the ‘real’ England. Instead of rural peace, bucolic beauty, and delightfully quaint characters straight out of Dickens, he stumbles upon gastro-pubs, a flatulent daschund (Lord Nelson), a sex-starved landlady, crazed Audi drivers, and a series of murders! As the hapless Thelonious keeps ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time, he attracts the attention of DCI Horatio Sidebottom of Norfolk Constabulary CID, who is determined to tie Thelonious to the crimes. Add in a pair of shaven-headed thugs (the upwardly mobile Desmond Clark and his psychopath brother Vinnie) from London’s East End, celebrity TV chef Paolo Louis Black, and plenty of oddball local characters and it all adds up to a madcap journey through England’s most peculiar county, where everything is normal for Norfolk! This quirky new crime novel is the first in the fun new series from bestselling author Mitzi Szereto, co-authored with her celebrity sidekick bear, Teddy Tedaloo. Paddington Bear meets Midsomer Murders in this hilarious murder mystery told from a bear’s-eye point of view. You have to buy into the idea that a talking bear is not an anomaly, but that it is normal. Perhaps it is normal for Norfolk, but Thelonious manages quite well in big cities. The author dives right into the nuts and bolts of life as a bear, from the problematic height of door handles down to bear shoe size and tries to fill the petrol tank of his specially adapted Mini Cooper. We as humans take life for granted: try being a bear with an arrest looming. Thelonious doesn’t set out to solve these murders. He just has to do something to keep the coppers off his back.
Tongue-in-cheek humor, including some clever political and social commentary, hair-raising escapades, and eccentric characters that you know you’ve met before (in your own life!), despite their very Englishness, all add up to a laugh-a-line read. I loved this book. It could have been longer, but I console myself with the knowledge that there is more to come, if Thelonious has anything to do with it. There is some bad language, but mostly from Desmond and Vinnie who possibly haven’t the education to know any better.
