Synopsis from Goodreads: Balthazar Jones has lived in the Tower of London with his loving wife, Hebe, and his 120-year-old pet tortoise for the past eight years. Balthazar is a Beefeater, one of the Tower’s guards. It’s no easy job living and working in the tourist attraction in present-day London.
Among the eccentric characters who call the Tower’s maze of ancient buildings and spiral staircases home are the Tower’s Rack & Ruin barmaid, Ruby Dore, who just found out she’s pregnant; portly Valerie Jennings, who is falling for ticket inspector Arthur Catnip; the lifelong bachelor Reverend Septimus Drew, who secretly pens a series of principled erotica; and the philandering Ravenmaster, aiming to avenge the death of one of his insufferable ravens.
When Balthazar is tasked with setting up an elaborate menagerie within the Tower walls to house the many exotic animals gifted to the Queen, life at the Tower gets all the more interesting. Penguins escape, giraffes are stolen, and the Komodo dragon sends innocent people running for their lives. Balthazar is in charge and things are not exactly running smoothly. Then Hebe decides to leave him and his beloved tortoise “runs” away.
This was such a lovely book. It took me awhile to read it as is doesn’t have a fast-paced, gripping storyline, but I’m glad I stuck with it and I felt it was well-worth it. In between a somewhat heavy storyline, hilarity ensues within the pages of Stuart’s book.
Stuart creates very interesting, somewhat flawed characters who are all rather quirky. The storyline of each character is built and built and then the way in which Stuart wraps up all their different stories is wonderful. My favorite thing about the novel is that when all the individual parts of the story are put together, The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise is a story about understanding that there are different ways people grieve and how those different people are able to overcome their grief.
If you like dry, British humor and are able to stick with a story that isn’t a page turner, I think you’ll really like this book.
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[…] The Tower, The Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart – If you like dry, British humor and are able to stick with a story that isn’t a page turner, then this book might just be for you. It’s about a Beefeater (that’s what they call the guardians of the Tower of London) who is given the task of setting up a menagerie to house the exotic pets the Queen is given as gifts. Stuart does a fantastic job creating quirky, lovable, hilarious characters. My favorite was the priest pens best-selling erotic novels; the proceeds of which he donates to housing reformed ‘ladies of the night.’ […]