Claudia Gray has written a series of murder mysteries set in Jane Austen’s Regency England, populated with characters from her most well-known books. The two main characters, however are OCs; Jonathan Darcy, the son of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett (of Pride and Prejudice fame) and Juliet Tilney, daughter of Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney (of Northanger Abbey). Jonathan and Juliet keep stumbling into situations involving murders, and they are the only two truly capable of solving them.
In this, the third book of the series, Jonathan and his father go to visit Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Fitzwilliam’s aunt for a social visit to discover who is attempting to murder her. Juliet and her father are also there on the slim reasoning of Elizabeth writing to Juliet and suggesting she go and assist? Aka, “hey! I think my son is kind of into you, so this is my attempt at matchmaking.” (Because murders are always great for romance.) While there, Johnathan and Juliet must solve the mystery of the attempted murder, work out their feeling for each other, and deal with their father’s mutual dislike of each other, and Darcy’s dislike of Juliet.
I would probably liked this book/series a lot better if I had ever actually read any Jane Austen; her books have been on my TBR pile for years, and I have never gotten around to them. So I will admit my opinion is a little biased by that fact, as well as that Regency England is not my favorite time period. But wow, talking. Has anyone ever heard of talking? Misunderstandings abound through 95% of the book because apparently simple conversation about things that don’t involve murder are just impossible. I understand that social mores are different in various time periods, however surely talking was not this hard back then?
I am also all for representation in books, however by this stage I am starting to think that Jonathan Darcy’s entire character is being summed up as “on the spectrum”. It’s brought up every single time he is on the page. And how his father doesn’t understand it. And how almost no one other than his mother and (surprise, surprise) Juliet understands it or accepts him for who he is. Though Fitz is another matter; if he’s as much a snobbish, judgemental prig in the original book, I can only assume he’s a fan-favorite based on the appearance of the actors who have played him. Not that Henry Tilney is much better. Two men who decide within five minutes to dislike each other and start to actively seek out reasons to stick to that opinion can get very annoying to read. Lady Catherine is far, far worse though; I spent the entire book hoping a murder attempt would succeed just so I wouldn’t have to deal with her anymore. And when the would-be murderer is finally revealed, it comes across as “crap, I’m almost at the end of the book, let me just squeeze some one and some motive in here to fit quota.” And once again, as proven in the previous two books, Claudia Gray quite obviously has her favorite characters and caters to them. If you’ve read the first two, you’ll understand when I say I was surprised that she didn’t find a way to try and pin this on the one character roped into the murders in the first two books.
On the whole I’ll continue to read the series, but I’ll probably wait for each book to come out in paperback before buying it.