Jane and the Canterbury Tale: Being A Jane Austen Mystery: 11

Author: Barron, Stephanie

Brand: Penguin Random House

Color: Multicolor

Edition: Original

Binding: paperback

Format: Deckle Edge

Number Of Pages: 320

Release Date: 30-08-2011

Part Number: 80423

Details: Product Description
Three years after news of her scandalous husband’s death, Adelaide Fiske is at the altar again, her groom a soldier on the Marquis of Wellington’s staff. The prospects seem bright for one of the most notorious women in Kent—until Jane Austen discovers a corpse on the ancient Pilgrim’s Way that runs through her brother Edward’s estate. As First Magistrate for Canterbury, Edward is forced to investigate, with Jane as his reluctant assistant. But she rises to the challenge and leaves no stone unturned, discovering mysteries deeper than she could have anticipated. It seems that Adelaide’s previous husband has returned for the new couple’s nuptials—only this time, genuinely, profoundly dead. But when a second corpse appears beside the ancient Pilgrim’s Way, Jane has no choice but to confront a murderer, lest the next corpse be her own.
Review
Stephanie Barron’s beloved Being A Jane Austen Mystery series is . . . 
 
“[Stephanie] Barron’s ability to capture Austen’s tone helps make this series one of the more literary and enjoyable.”—
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Wonderful . . . echoing the rhythms of the Austen novels with uncanny ease.”—
Entertainment Weekly 
“A genteelly jolly series.”—
The New York Times Book Review 
“Splendid fun!”
—Minneapolis
Star Tribune 
“Charming, literate and unequaled.”—
Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Stephanie Barron is the author of the standalone historical suspense novels
A Flaw in the Blood and
The White Garden, as well as the Jane Austen mystery series. As Francine Mathews, she is the author of several novels of espionage, including
The Alibi Club. She lives in Denver, Colorado.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
f CHAPTER ONE g

Marriages Made in Heaven

“. . . either you or I will win

My lady, and if it’s you, rejoicing in

Her love when I am dead, why then you’ll have her.”

Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Knight’s Tale”

Wednesday, 20 October 1813

Godmersham Park, Kent

—

“Ah, Miss Austen,” cried Mr. Richard Tylden as he offered me a glass of claret this evening—most welcome, as the day had been exceedingly wet, and the crush of persons in the ballroom at Chilham Castle so great as to entirely prevent me approaching the fire—“It has been an age since we met! And yet you appear to greater advantage than ever, if I may permit myself to offer so bold a compliment. That gown is excessively becoming. A shade exactly suited to a lady of your colouring.”

As the gown was new, and a source of inordinate pride—the very kick of fashion and purchased at breathless expence only six months before in Brighton—I blushed like a schoolgirl. “You flatter me, Mr. Tylden.”

“Indeed I do not!” he insisted, and raised his glass in salute. “To marriages made in Heaven,” he intoned, “and acquaintance renewed, after far too long a lapse.”

I had no intention of flirting with the poor man, who is already long since married and devoted to his country church; but I condescended to beam at him before taking a sip of wine. I could not help but be pleased with my situation—­having come into Kent with my brother Edward’s entire family party in September, I had endured a headlong whirl of gaiety ever since, and tho’ excessively fatiguing, the change from the quieter pleasures of the Hampshire countryside had undoubtedly done me good. I might revisit all those treasured scenes of happier days, when Edward’s beloved Elizabeth reigned at his beautiful Godmersham Park; serve as counselor to my niece Fanny, who was caught in all the toils of young womanhood; and appear as boon companion to the affected and rather silly spinster charged with the governance of Edward’s madcap younger daughters. In the midst of which, naturally, I snatched the odd hour to jot my immortal phrases into the little books I sew up from bits of foolscap. They have a distinct advantage, in being no larger than the span of a pocket in a lady’s gown—into which mine are freque

EAN: 9780553386714

Package Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches

Languages: English