|
Loading...
LibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendationsLoading...
won't like
will probably not like
will probably like
will like
will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This is the best book so far in this wonderful series. It has everything from romance to murder to espionage to a great setting and, of course, wonderful characters. The book is set in and around the ruins of Netley Abbey which has its own ghosts over the years. Jane and her Gentleman Rogue are pulled into the intrigue surrounding Napoleon's quest to attack England. The port city where Jane is residing becomes a hotbed of intrigue and deception. When a British frigate under construction is set afire, and when the shipwright is found murdered with his throat slit, Jane knows that this is serious and that the love of her life is in grave danger. The book is carefully researched and true to historical happenings in and around this time in Regency England. Ms. Barron builds the suspense throughout the book right up until the very memorable ending. Ms. Barron's Jane Austen is very believable. She makes a first-rate sleuth! ( )This was the most tragic of endings - how could it have been so??? While some of Jane's mysteries are more centered around greed and envy, periodically Ms. Barron returns us to the on-going war between England and France. When reading Jane Austen's novels, it is easy to forget the greater picture within which her stories existed. It has been enjoyable to have this historical flavor in these novels. from Publishers Weekly: "Set in the autumn of 1808, Barron's seventh Jane Austen mystery (after 2002's Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House) offers a wonderfully intricate plot full of espionage and intrigue. While admiring the romantic ruins of Netley Abbey on the Southampton coast, the author and sleuth receives a summons from Lord Harold Trowbridge, who asks her to gain the confidence of a suspected French agent, Sophia Challoner, who's taken up residence at Netley Lodge near the ruins. On meeting Sophia, Jane is skeptical that the attractive widow is "the Peninsula's most potent weapon" against the British forces there. When an enemy of England sets fire to a frigate moored at Southampton Water, home of the Royal Navy, and cuts the throat of its shipwright, Jane begins to have doubts that could put herself-or someone close to her-in deadly peril. Barron effortlessly works in such actual history as the machinations surrounding Mrs. Fitzherbert, the Prince Regent's morganatic wife, and the issue of Catholic Emancipation, along with the domestic arrangements of the Austen household at a time of great family sadness and upheaval. Brief editor's notes unobtrusively elucidate such matters as mourning practices of the day. The Austen voice, both humorous and fanciful, with shades of Northanger Abbey, rings true as always." no reviews | add a review
References to this work on external resources.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Book description |
|
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:57 -0400)
The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details.
Quick Links |
| Ebooks | Audio | Swap |
| — | — | 3/10 |