My Series-ous Reading is haunted by Jane and The Ghosts of Netley

My Triple Play theme for this year’s Series-ous Reading takes me further into Jane Austen country with Stephanie Barron’s Jane and the Ghosts of Netley, which directly follows the SR selection from last month, Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House.

Jane is still living near Southampton when she receives an invitation to secretly meet up with one of her dearest friends (and possibly more than that), Lord Harold Trowbridge aka The Gentleman Rogue.

She’s well aware of the discreet missions that Lord Harold done on behalf of king and country, even adding some assistance of her own from time to time. This is one of those occasions that requires some of Jane’s help as a woman from Lord Harold’s past has just moved into Netley Lodge and keeping his presence a secret is important for the moment.

The lady in question is Sophia Challoner, a widow with no love for English politics, particularly due to their restrictions upon the Catholic faith. Jane becomes injured during her attempts to casually observe the doings at Netley and Sophia’s courtesy towards her soon grows into a new friendship.

She soon doubts that all of Lord Harold’s suspicions about Sophia are correct but gathers up some concerns of her own as a local shipyard is attacked with a man being ruthlessly killed in the process. Furthermore, Sophia is also entertaining a mysterious American guest named James Ord and an even more mysterious visitor known only as Monsignor:

Once Lord Harold makes his presence known to Sophia, tensions rise even greater. As Jane finds herself caught between these two dynamic forces, can she truly make an accurate judgment of the situations before her, not to mention her own heart?

Having read the book that comes after this one(Jane and His Lordship’s Legacy) already, I was somewhat prepared for a certain character to permanently depart the narrative here. 

Despite that knowledge, the final scene between him and Jane was most touching and startling indeed.

What was a real surprise for me was the appearance of Maria Fitzherbert into the plot. The not so secret love(and not legally recognized wife) of the Prince Regent comes to visit Sophia and appears to have connections with several of the guests at Netley, making the political intrigue that Lord Harold is involved with rise to a much higher level there.

I do appreciate the research that Barron does  for these book and slips neatly into the storylines, sometimes with footnotes, that enriches the world around her version of Jane Austen. That blend of actual history with inspired imagination is what make the Jane Austen Mystery a real cut above the rest for me:

Soon this part of my Triple Play pleasure will be at an end as I am now reading Jane and the Barque of Frailty. This will complete the series for me until the actual last novel is published this fall.

For this story, Jane is staying in London with her banker brother Henry and his wife Eliza as she is getting ready for her first novel, Sense & Sensibility, to be released to the public.

When the shocking death of a foreign princess happens not too far from her family’s doorstep, Jane grows curious about the case and becomes even motivated to find the killer when she and her sister-in-law are accused of taking part in the crime!

Yes,Jane never did fit well into London society and as her fictional heroines Elinor and Marianne discover, such places do bring excitement of the worst kind into ordinary people’s lives most certainly there: