November 20, 2023
A 20-year-old Jane Austen unexpectedly becomes an amateur sleuth to clear her brother’s name in Bull’s imaginative debut and series launch. Budding novelist Jane attends a ball at the opulent home of Lord John Harcourt, where she expects dashing Irishman Tom Lefroy to offer her his hand in marriage. Before Lefroy can bend a knee, however, one of Harcourt’s housemaids finds the body of a young woman in the laundry closet, and the festivities come to a halt. Jane recognizes the victim as Madame Renault, a milliner who’d sold her a hat a few days earlier. The expensive necklace Renault was wearing before her death is missing from her corpse, so the local magistrate surmises that vagabonds used the ball as cover to steal Madame Renault’s necklace and leave her for dead. When the jewelry turns up in the pocket of Jane’s nonverbal older brother Georgie, he’s swiftly arrested and charged with theft and murder. With Georgie unable to defend himself and Jane convinced of his innocence, she enlists the help of her close-knit family to find the killer before her brother is hanged. Bull’s Jane is an endearingly clumsy detective, equal parts clever and impulsive, and the investigation contains the kind of high stakes that similar breezy historicals often lack. This series seems destined for a long run.
January 1, 2024
In December 1795 in Hampshire, England, Jane Austen is attending a dance that ends abruptly when a woman's body is found. Jane recognizes her as Madame Renard, a recently arrived milliner, but what brought her to the Harcourts' home? Jane is curious enough to start asking questions, but everything changes when her brother, Georgy, a young man with limited capabilities, becomes the primary suspect. Now Jane, with the help of her family, must find and bring to justice the real killer. Accurate Regency details, complex relationships within the extended Austen family, and a social context based on societal expectations regarding birth order, gender, and economic status establish the author's in-depth research, but more impressive is how quickly these lively and engaging characters become new fictional friends. Janeites will be thrilled with the thoughtful depiction of Jane, historical fiction and mystery fans will find plenty to be impressed by, and anyone looking for a mix of strong characters in well-researched settings similar to those of Anne Perry, Charles Finch, and C. S. Harris will also enjoy Bull's debut.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
February 1, 2024
Murder rattles the close-knit Austen family. The winter before she turns 20 seems promising for young Jane Austen. Her flirtation with Irish law student Tom Lefroy has grown more serious, and she hopes the announcement of Jonathan Harcourt's betrothal to Sophy Rivers, which she anticipates hearing at the Harcourts' ball, will prompt young Tom to ask for her hand. But the festivities end abruptly when a chambermaid finds the body of a young woman stashed in a laundry closet. The late Madame Renault, a merchant from overseas who sold hats in the Basingstoke market, was clearly killed by a blow to the head. But it's much less clear who wielded the heavy metal pan. At Lord Harcourt's urging, Magistrate Richard Craven first blames vagabonds living on the Harcourt estate. When no vagrants are found, Craven's eyes shift toward George Austen, Jane's intellectually disabled older brother. Georgy's come into possession of a gold and seed pearl chain belonging to Madame Renault, and even though Craven knows that the nonverbal young man is an unlikely killer, he charges him with grand larceny, a capital crime. The Austens can't decide which fate would be worst for Georgy: allowing him to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, a plea that would consign him to an asylum for the rest of his life; throwing him on the mercy of the court in hope that he'd be transported to Australia, where he would certainly be unable to care for himself; or allowing him to be hanged. If Jane can identify the real killer, however, the court will have to release her brother, and Madame Renault will receive the justice she deserves. Paints a lively picture of Austen-family dynamics that offers little insight into the writer Jane will become.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.