12/3/22

One of the best of this Stephanie Barron series. ( )

It won't do to be in a hurry for a mystery--the corpse doesn't appear till more than a third of the novel has passed by--but Byron charismatically haunts the early pages in evocative, fleeting glimpses. Barron's portrayal is in the "mad, bad and dangerous to know" camp (she describes him as mentally ill in her Q&A), without much in the way of complexity or the expertise she brings to her Jane Austen. (Falls prey, for instance--and it must be hard to avoid, it's so common--to having her Byron be forever declaiming upon himself--when, by first-hand accounts, he was soft-spoken and even a bit shy socially.) An entertaining read, though. ( )

It's been awhile since I've read a book in this series and I found it so fun to be back in the world of Jane Austen, detective! The figure of Lord Byron as possible murderer and the rather immoral group of royalty visiting in Brighton makes for a particularly rich look at Regency England. ( )

Again, I have enjoyed Stephanie Barron's Jane book. Even though I'm always aware that Jane did none of this, a part of me delights in experiencing Jane as a curious truth-seeker and imagining her relationships with friends and family members. She is, as is not surprising, a fun character, lively and intelligent, and Barron has done plenty of research on the era.