Enjoy!
#15 Being a Jane Austen Mystery
Historical Mystery
Publisher: Soho Crime
Published: 10.24.23
Pages: 312
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Sellers: Amazon
ADD TO: GoodReads
GoodReads Blurb:
The final volume of the critically
acclaimed mystery series featuring Jane Austen as amateur sleuth
March 1817: As winter turns to spring, Jane Austen’s
health is in slow decline, and threatens to cease progress on her latest
manuscript. But when her nephew Edward brings chilling news of a death at his
former school, Winchester College, not even her debilitating ailment can keep
Jane from seeking out the truth. Arthur Prendergast, a senior pupil at the
prestigious all-boys’ boarding school, has been found dead in a culvert near
the schoolgrounds—and in the pocket of his drenched waistcoat is an
incriminating note penned by the young William Heathcote, the son of Jane’s
dear friend Elizabeth. Winchester College is a world unto itself, with its own
language and rites of passage, cruel hazing and dangerous pranks. Can Jane
clear William’s name before her illness gets the better of her?
Over the course of fourteen previous novels in the
critically acclaimed Being a Jane Austen Mystery series, Stephanie Barron has
won the hearts of thousands of fans—crime fiction aficionados and Janeites
alike—with her tricky plotting and breathtaking evocation of Austen’s voice.
Now, she brings Jane’s final season—and final murder investigation—to
brilliant, poignant life in this unforgettable conclusion.
Sophia Rose's Review:
All good things must come to an end
and, in this case, come full circle in some ways. Jane explores the British public school world
with the aid of her favorite nephew when faced with getting to the bottom of a
young man’s death before her dear friend’s son is convicted of murder.
The
Jane and the Final Mystery plot takes readers into the cloistered world of
higher education behind the ancient stone walls of one of England’s prestigious
prep schools and the English quality medical work at the time. The life of the teenage scholars, the
traditions, and the rivalries were fascinating and play a huge role in the
murder investigation as does the medical work of Giles Lyford. The victim was a malicious bully and William
Heathcote, the son of Jane’s friend, was his biggest target and so became the
chief suspect. William has a stammer and
this made him a prime target.
On a side note, I thought it was
fascinating and not just a little sad to see the book explore what it was like
for a person to have a speech impediment at the time- people saw it as a
reflection on intellect- and the way treatment for a speech impairment was
handled.
Jane is obviously ill in this one so
she has a youthful Edward Austen, son of her older brother, James Austen, as
her stout partner in detecting. Edward
has a winning personality and matched his clever aunt for wits and shared a
literary gift and also the likelihood of having to follow in his father’s
footsteps rather than his dear aunt’s.
Edward has already left Winchester for
Oxford, but brings his Aunt Jane to help his school friend, William, when
disturbing news comes to him in a letter.
William is the prime suspect so Jane and Edward seek answers with the
students and staff at the school where both boys both lived and studied. The evidence leads them on a twisting path to
a surprising end.
True to Austen’s life and to the
Regency era, it is obvious this book and series has been carefully researched
and the historical details integrated with the mystery plot. I enjoy the explanatory footnotes throughout
when a quirky historical term needs explaining for a modern reader.
Jane and the Final Mystery was an
absolutely fabulous finale to the series.
I could taste the bittersweet knowledge that dear Jane was nearing the
end of her life, but the solution of this case was a triumphant high note. Those who enjoy historical mystery that is
cozy in tone, but detailed and deeply immersive in backdrop and character
should definitely slip this series onto the reading list.
Francine Stephanie Barron Mathews
was born in Binghamton, NY in 1963, the last of six girls. The family spent
their summers on Cape Cod; Francine’s passion for Nantucket and the New England
shoreline dates from her earliest memories. She grew up in Washington, D.C.,
where she attended Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School.
In 1981, she started college at
Princeton, where she walked on to the women’s fencing team and joined the staff
of The Daily Princetonian. Journalism eventually led to reporting stints
on The Miami Herald and The San Jose Mercury News. Francine
majored in European History at Princeton, studying Napoleonic France, and won
an Arthur W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities in her senior year.
But the course she remembers most vividly is “The Literature of Fact,” taught
by John McPhee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and staff writer for The
New Yorker. John’s work and enduring lessons in craft remain touchstones
for her writing life.
Francine spent three years at
Stanford pursuing a doctorate in history; she failed to write her dissertation
(on the Brazilian Bar Association under authoritarianism; can you blame her?)
and left with a Masters. She applied to the CIA, spent a year temping in
Northern Virginia while the FBI asked inconvenient questions of everyone she
had ever known, passed a polygraph test on her twenty-sixth birthday, and was
immediately thrown into the Career Trainee program: Boot Camp for the Agency’s
Best and Brightest. Four years as an intelligence analyst at the CIA were
profoundly fulfilling, the highlights being Francine’s work on the
Counterterrorism Center’s investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103,
over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, and sleeping on a horsehair mattress in a
Spectre-era casino in the middle of Bratislava. Another peak moment was her
chance to debrief ex-President George Bush in Houston in 1993. But what she
remembers most about the place are the extraordinary intelligence and dedication
of most of the staff—many of them women—many of whom cannot be named.
Francine’s first novel
was published in 1993, the year she left the CIA and moved with her husband to
Colorado. When she’s not writing, she likes to ski, garden, needlepoint, cook,
and travel. She has two sons and a number of dogs, all of them terriers.
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Sophia’s Bio:
Sophia
is a quiet though curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing,
piano-playing, and gardening. Road trips and campouts, museums and monuments,
restaurants and theaters are her jam. Encouraged and supported by an incredible
man and loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes
Region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, Baseball, Cats, Scooby Doo, and
Chocolate.
As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that
Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing. Sophia is a
prolific reader and audiobook listener which allows her to experience so many
wonderful books, authors, and narrators. Few genres are outside her reading
tastes, but her true love is fiction particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and
romance. Though, sorry, no horror or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sophia.rose.7587
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiarose1816
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13418187.Sophia_Rose
Yay, to a great finale.
ReplyDeleteIt sure was, Nadene! A smash finish. :)
DeleteTerrific series. Highly recommend.
ReplyDeleteYou said it! :)
Delete