Taking a bookish tour with Jane and The Year Without a Summer

One of the highlights of this new year of reading was to discover that a new Jane Austen mystery by Stephanie Barron was set to arrive in February.

For those not familiar with this series, Barron has imagined the Regency literary legend as a detective who subtly yet surely uses her keen insight into human follies to solve those puzzles (and occasional murders) that come across her path in life.

For this latest entry, Jane and the Year Without a Summer, the year in question is 1816 when a volcanic eruption caused a worldwide change in the seasons. Nevertheless, Jane and her sister Cassandra decide to spend a couple of weeks in the spa town of Cheltenham for some much needed rest and restoration.

Since the works of Jane Austen are often blended into the narrative of each story, I thought that a good way to highlight the new Jane Austen mystery would be by pointing out some of those familiar story sights.

To start with, Jane and Cassandra do make a stop along the way to Cheltenham at their brother James’s home where his wife Mary is always fancying herself to be far sicker than anyone else. This sister-in-law reminds me greatly of Anne Eliot’s similarly named sister in Persuasion who shares that attention getting inclination as well:

When Jane and her sister do arrive in Cheltenham, they quickly learn that there is more to the place than just taking the waters.

Plenty of amusement is to be found among their new acquaintances at their local lodgings, rather like Charlotte Heywood discovers in Sanditon , that sadly unfinished story set in a seaside village looking to offer the promise of renewed health and perhaps a touch of romance to visitors there:

Intrigue abounds, however, as one of their new company turns out to be fleeing from her nobleman husband and possibly wicked stepmother.

The lady’s insistence that her family seeks to ruin her health for their own financial benefit does sound quite a bit like one of those Gothic novels that Catherine Morland from  Northanger Abbey would devour in one late night sitting. 

Regardless, things may not be what they seem as both Jane and her fictional heroine learn along the way…:

As a fan of historical mysteries and Jane Austen, I was very happy to be included on this blog tour which continues until February 20th.

Much thanks to Laurel Ann Nattress at Austenprose for inviting me onboard and also to Stephanie Barron for giving us another creative opportunity to revisit Jane Austen’s world yet again.

I have read the book and it is an engaging look at Austen’s later years with a good dash of the humor and wit that most likely got her through some of the trying times that the real life Austen dealt with.

This story does hold a note of romantic regret as Jane does meet up with an old friend who could’ve been something more had not circumstances gotten in the way. 

With this book being the thirteenth installment in the series, I do hope for at least one more tale to round out Jane’s last days in this regard. However this set of Jane Austen Mysteries ends, they are tales worth retelling indeed: