Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Gray's clever fourth Jane Austen homage (after The Perils of Lady Catherine de Bourgh) keeps her winning streak alive. In 1823, Jonathan Darcy (son of Pride and Prejudice's Fitzwilliam Darcy) and his sleuthing colleague, Juliet Tilney (daughter of Northanger Abbey's Catherine Morland), are in London to participate in the social season and possibly find a mate--an unwelcome prospect, since each harbors romantic feelings for the other. When Jonathan's family must return to Pemberley, he's forced to board with his father's friend, Sir Thomas Bertram. Jonathan and Juliet get a respite from their mandated socializing after Maria Rushworth, Bertram's black-sheep sister, arrives at the family home, and then someone close to her is strangled to death with a length of rope. As a result, the amateur sleuths eagerly exit the London rat race and tap into their deductive acumen. Gray continues to effortlessly capture the language and tone of Austen's novels, this time heating up the series' sparkling romance plot while delivering her most intricate puzzle to date. It's a delight. Agent: Laura Rennert, Andrea Brown Literary. (June)
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Review by Library Journal Review
The fourth installment in Gray's series starring the next generation of Austen heroes (after The Perils of Lady Catherine de Bourgh). Together, Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney know how to solve mysteries--but they can't quite crack the codes of how to find their Austen ending, at least not in one book. Like its predecessors, this novel playfully weaves central and side characters from Austen's novels together with new stories of their children. Here, crime-solving Jonathan and Juliet reunite, still hoping to defy their families' prejudices about class, money, and appropriate activities for women while figuring out how to resolve a scandal that turns murderous. The death of Mr. Rushworth, the former husband of Mansfield Park antiheroine Maria, awakens reexaminations of what exactly happened between Maria, Rushworth, and Henry Crawford. Jonathan and Juliet are in the right place at the right time to investigate. VERDICT Austenites will delight in Gray's deft retellings of the scandals at the center of Mansfield Park, with plenty of sly allusions woven into a plot that will keep readers guessing, as much about murders as about marriages.--Emily Bowles
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