The Brenda and Effie Mysteries (series)

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The Brenda and Effie Mysteries was a series of "gothic mystery" prose and audio stories by Paul Magrs. The series followed the adventures of the eponymous Brenda and Effie Jacobs who, along with Whitby and its residents, have numerous adventures involving cosy parodies of pulp monsters and concepts.

Brenda and Effie stories also often featured characters and concepts that originated in Magrs' Doctor Who stories, most extensively Hotel Miramar, Cleavis, and MIAOW—the latter to the point that VOR 1 inaccurately described MIAOW as originating from Brenda and Effie. The series trickled back into Magrs' more directly Doctor Who work, conceptually in stories such as The Dreadful Flap or The Boy That Time Forgot and thematically in stories such as Organism 96, culminating in Brenda and Effie's adventures with Iris Wildthyme starting in A Tingle of Happiness.

The Brenda and Effie Mysteries includes seven novels, one anthology,^[1] and four audio stories which won the New York Festivals Radio Award 2015 for Best Audiobook and were re-released as the eight-part podcast Grandma Guignol.^[2] The scripts for these stories are available on Paul Magrs' Patreon.^[3] The series also has several spinoff novels, including 666 Charing Cross Road, Mrs Danby and Company, and Fellowship of Ink, set in the shared continuity of Magrs' Doctor Who books and The Brenda and Effie Mysteries.

Prose[[edit] | [edit source]]

Novels[[edit] | [edit source]]

#	Title	Notes
1	Never the Bride	Features Kristoff Alucard as an agent of MIAOW (which first appeared in Mad Dogs and Englishmen). The Meercocks from Verdigris are reintroduced as Magrs' Martians, which would later appear in Enter Wildthyme and other stories. Big Sue appears. The Dreadful Flap is a direct sequel to the events of this novel. Manifest Yourself reappears from this novel in the Baker's End story Gobbleknoll Hall alongside Vince Cosmos from Enter Wildthyme.
2	Something Borrowed	Features Henry Cleavis and flashbacks to Reginald Tyler, the Smudgelings, The True History of Planets, and William Freer, all from Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Several scenes from Mad Dogs and Englishmen are directly paralleled, most notably one sequence where Brenda boards the very same train taken by the Eighth Doctor in that novel. Goomba from The Wickerwork Man features as the main antagonist, with various details indicating these two stories are coexistent and involving the same patio set. Mumu Manchu is introduced, meaning that The Delightful Bag can be regarded as a prequel to this story.
3	Conjugal Rites	Features Kristoff Alucard and Mumu Manchu. As usual, features the Hotel Miramar.
4	Hell's Belles	Features Karla Sorenson, Fox Soames, Magda Soames, Blithe Pinking Shears, Kristoff Alucard, and the making of Get Thee Inside Me, Satan. Mentions Hyspero and the Very Fabric of Time and Space.
5	The Bride That Time Forgot	Features Beatrice Mapp and Rupert Von Thal from The Boy That Time Forgot and reveals that audio story featured cameo appearances by Brenda and a disguised Cleavis (in the form of Quandry). Also features Gila from The Scarlet Empress, as well as Blithe Pinking Shears, Very Fabric of Time and Space, Cleavis, MIAOW, and the Dreadful Flap. Hyspero, the Smudgelings, and Tish Madoc are mentioned.
6	Brenda and Effie Forever!	Features Panda as well as Gila, the Books of Mayhem, the Blithe Pinking Shears, and MIAOW and minor appearances from Quandry, Rupert Von Thal, and Beatrice Mapp. Scenes from this novel reappear in Talented Witches.
7	A Game of Crones	Adapts several Brenda & Effie audio stories. Features Tolstoy.
8	Beyond the Veil	Brenda and Effie come back from the dead...

Anthologies[[edit] | [edit source]]

A Treasury of Brenda and Effie[[edit] | [edit source]]

Title	Author	Notes
The Notorious Horkum Asylum	Paul Magrs	Brenda dreams about Goomba. An expansion of the short story Visiting Hour at Horkum Asylum, Nr. Whitby - published on Paul Magrs' blog^[4]
Conga of the Living Dead	Greg Maughan
Everything’s Coming Up Roses	Jay Eales
Brenda and Effie: Many Happy Returns	Tony Jones
The Scottish Flap	Andrew Lawston	Features Robert, Gila, Karla Sorenson and mention of Get Thee Inside Me, Satan.
The Ragged School	Matt Bright	Features Robert, and mention of Manifest Yourself.
The Sons of Kalevala	Morgan Melhuish
Crystal Balls and Clackers	Neil O'Brien	Features Cleavis.
Brenda's Bad Day	Selina Lock
Eff the Unknown	Nick Campbell

Short stories[[edit] | [edit source]]

Never the Bride - released in 2009's Twelve Stories. A prose release of the original radio play.
The Curious Package - printed in the 2011 charity anthology Voices from the Past. Later released as part of Team Up.
Talented Witches - printed in the 2012 anthology Resurrection Engines. Later released in the 114th episode of the Far Fetched Fables series.
The Return of the Discombobulated Woman - published in The Myriad Carnival.
The Woolworth Horror - a two part short story released on Paul Magrs' Patreon.^[5]^[6] Officially published in 2020's A Game of Crones.
The Arabian Nighties - published in A Game of Crones.
Mrs Hudson at the Christmas Hotel - published in A Game of Crones.
A Tingle of Happiness - published in Christmassy Tales.

Spin-offs[[edit] | [edit source]]

Title	Author	Notes
666 Charing Cross Road	Paul Magrs	Featuring Fox Soames and Bessie
Mrs Danby and Company		Featuring Servo-furnishing.
Fellowship of Ink		Featuring Brenda and Effie, Cleavis, Reginald Tyler, and Magda.

Audio[[edit] | [edit source]]

BBC Radio 4[[edit] | [edit source]]

Never the Bride^[7] - the original 1998 story that was later adapted into various forms

Never the Bride[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Night Owls
The Vintage Costumed Hero Ball
Our Frank

Bafflegab Productions[[edit] | [edit source]]

#	Title	Author	Featuring
1	The Woman in a Black Beehive	Paul Magrs	Brenda, Effie Jacobs, Jessie, Harold the Cat
2	Bat Out of Hull		Brenda, Effie, Tolstoy
3	Spicy Tea and Sympathy		Brenda, Effie, Cleavis, Reginald Tyler
4	Brenda Has Risen from the Grave		Brenda, Effie