Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I reviewed Station Eleven, a dystopian novel about a traveling troupe that performs Shakespeare. Heather enjoyed The Gin Shack on the Beach as a fun example of old lady chick lit. Gaele tried the third installment of the Deverill Chronicles, The Secret of the Irish Castle, without reading the first two — and it didn’t work so well for her. She enjoyed more another third book of a series, Telegrams and Teacakes, about a Bournemouth baker during World War II. Sim gave us the trailer for The Children Act, opened in the US last week, and an interview with its star, Emma Thompson.

A parody of murder mysteries set on a beautiful Caribbean island

Death in Paradise remains a guilty pleasure for me. It’s a detective series that spoofs other detective series. The show is a joint production for the BBC and France Télévisions, with a British detective leading a team of islanders to solve murder mysteries. The Caribbean setting is beautiful — I take a lovely relaxing breath every time I see a shot of blue waves on white sand.

I wrote about the first three seasons about three years ago and about seasons 4 and 5 last summer.

I wasn’t going to write about seasons 6 and 7, now available on Netflix, but they did something surprising in the midst of season 6 — for two episodes, they went to London! Since Death in Paradise films there so rarely, they were careful to get lots of wonderful shots of iconic sites in the city. I especially loved the stake-out that happened almost directly underneath the Tower Bridge. For me, vistas of London are almost as relaxing and wondrous to see on the screen as beautiful beaches.

Are you a Death in Paradise fan?