Age 09-12. 3 Stars. In this sequel to At the Sign of the Sugared Plum… Hannah returns with her younger sister Anne to re-open their confectionary shop in London…. Hooper builds upon the excellent historical foundation she laid in the original book, giving a sense of the period’s flavor… the detailed description of Hannah’s journey through the burning city, with all the landmarks that succumb to the fire, is nothing short of breathtaking. The character development is again rather shallow and the love story leaves much to be desired…. sentimental indulgence in the context of an undefined pseudo-courtship makes the book feel more like a modern teenage novel than a story from this time period.

Age 08-12. 4 Stars. Hannah and Sarah are teenaged entrepreneurs, sisters running a shop in 1665 London…. Hannah, who has recently joined her sister, is excited at the prospect of a big-city life and complacently dismisses rumors that the Bubonic Plague is reawakening in London…. Overall, the characters and relationships portrayed in this story aren’t very remarkable, but the historical description — the smell of the city, the neat pile of hand-ground sugar in the girls’ kitchen, the inside view of the theatre, the streetside view of nobility leaving town in carriages, curtains drawn, as quarantine falls — all these kinds of details combine to form a vivid depiction of the period in which this terrible Plague wreaked such destruction.