Rating: 
Summary: Don't be clueless and miss the fourth Austen who-done-it
Review: In August of 1805, sisters Jane and Cassandra Austen leave Bath to travel to their brother Edward's estate in Kent in order to enjoy the Canterbury races. All the rich and famous attend, making the area a perfect locale for amorality, scandal, and gossip. The most daring of them all is the figure in scarlet, Francoise, the French spouse of a banker, Valentin Grey. However, the gossip about Mrs. Grey turns morbid when someone murders her. Most of the aristocracy assumes one of her lovers or her spouse killed her. Jane disagrees that this is a simple murder of passion. Having some previous success with solving crimes (see the three previous Jane mysteries), Ms. Austen begins to look for clues that will prove there are more sinister happenings than a deadly lover's quarrel. The fourth novel in the Jane Austen mysteries continues with the same freshness and brilliant insight into the early nineteenth century that the previous three novels provided readers. The well-designed story line of JANE AND THE GENIUS OF THE PLACE provides readers with an intriguing and puzzling mystery. Jane remains interesting and the support cast adds authenticity. However, what makes Stephanie Barron's novel and, for that matter, the entire series so much fun to read is the details of the era with Jane's life interwoven into it, making for a superb who-done-it. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: The Genius of the Book
Review: Having just finished reading this book, I find myself wanting more. I felt lost after closing the book and missed Barron's characters, which grow on the reader with time. Although this book was harder to "get into to", it all came together in the end, albeit somewhat confusingly. I would definately say this book in the Jane Austen Mystery series was more difficult to follow. Others who have read this one have agreed with me in that the characters are introduced briefly and quickly. The setting could be described a bit more too. Overall, this work of Barron's is fun and interesting to read. I prefer her first novel more, as it seems a little more gentler and subtle. With this, the fourth in the series, one cannot help becoming attached to the main characters. Stephanie Barron does justice to the time period and the speech of the day. Nothing is worse than to read a period book and find modern day phrases throughout. Let us hope Barron continues her meticulous work and continues to bring forth more of Jane Austen for those of us who can never get enough!
Rating:
Summary: The Genius of the Book
Review: Having just finished reading this book, I find myself wanting more. I felt lost after closing the book and missed Barron's characters, which grow on the reader with time. Although this book was harder to "get into to", it all came together in the end, albeit somewhat confusingly. I would definately say this book in the Jane Austen Mystery series was more difficult to follow. Others who have read this one have agreed with me in that the characters are introduced briefly and quickly. The setting could be described a bit more too. Overall, this work of Barron's is fun and interesting to read. I prefer her first novel more, as it seems a little more gentler and subtle. With this, the fourth in the series, one cannot help becoming attached to the main characters. Stephanie Barron does justice to the time period and the speech of the day. Nothing is worse than to read a period book and find modern day phrases throughout. Let us hope Barron continues her meticulous work and continues to bring forth more of Jane Austen for those of us who can never get enough!
Rating:
Summary: Five stars for above average period detail!
Review: I am a fan of these clever and richly detailed stories by Ms. Barron. She crafts a vividly realized period setting, casts it with lively characters and then tosses in a good murder or two for these creatures to solve. To my mind, relaxing mystery reading doesn't get much better than that! Keeping in mind the above, I must say that I found "Jane and the Genius of the Place" somewhat less than a full meal in the mystery column than the previous three. I cannot, of course, speak for the other reviewers here but I found that I had solved the "surprise" twists of the story almost upon finding their first mentions in the book. It made me wish Jane (for all her muched lauded cleverness) would hurry along and catch up! I enjoyed all of the new characters thoroughly especially Julian Sothey who was sadly, I thought, underused in the storyline. I would have liked to met him earlier in the plot! If nothing else to understand his devotion to Anne Sharpe who seemed quite underdeveloped as a plot device. Just why would this brilliant and sophisticated man pine for this particular girl? What was it about Anne Sharpe that would make him seek her out when he might have any selection of brighter, more entertaining women to chose from? In the story Anne seems a bit lacklustre to truly engage the imagination of so artistic and discerning a gentleman. I believe it is this dynamic that causes the story's ending to be less than satisfying. There just isn't enough here to hang an ending on. But nonetheless, Ms.Barron is a gifted and skillful writer who has produced a series of awfully good mystery stories. I know I will continue to read them as long as she is kind enough to produce them! Perhaps she will even bring Julian Sothey back in another "Jane" tale and give him a finer ending!
Rating:
Summary: Five stars for above average period detail!
Review: I am a fan of these clever and richly detailed stories by Ms. Barron. She crafts a vividly realized period setting, casts it with lively characters and then tosses in a good murder or two for these creatures to solve. To my mind, relaxing mystery reading doesn't get much better than that! Keeping in mind the above, I must say that I found "Jane and the Genius of the Place" somewhat less than a full meal in the mystery column than the previous three. I cannot, of course, speak for the other reviewers here but I found that I had solved the "surprise" twists of the story almost upon finding their first mentions in the book. It made me wish Jane (for all her muched lauded cleverness) would hurry along and catch up! I enjoyed all of the new characters thoroughly especially Julian Sothey who was sadly, I thought, underused in the storyline. I would have liked to met him earlier in the plot! If nothing else to understand his devotion to Anne Sharpe who seemed quite underdeveloped as a plot device. Just why would this brilliant and sophisticated man pine for this particular girl? What was it about Anne Sharpe that would make him seek her out when he might have any selection of brighter, more entertaining women to chose from? In the story Anne seems a bit lacklustre to truly engage the imagination of so artistic and discerning a gentleman. I believe it is this dynamic that causes the story's ending to be less than satisfying. There just isn't enough here to hang an ending on. But nonetheless, Ms.Barron is a gifted and skillful writer who has produced a series of awfully good mystery stories. I know I will continue to read them as long as she is kind enough to produce them! Perhaps she will even bring Julian Sothey back in another "Jane" tale and give him a finer ending!
Rating:
Summary: A delightful way to pass a lazy afternoon! Read it!
Review: I am a great fan of Jane Austen's work, of British history, and of mystery novels, so I adore these books. I read this in a weekend that I was home from college and it was a wonderfully refreshing change from my school reading. The only caution I would give is that many fascinating historical details are included, which may frustrate some readers who aren't as interested in the history as in the plot. There is a wonderful cast of supporting characters, most notably Jane's sister-in-law Lizzy and niece Fanny Austen. I hope to see more of Fanny in the rest of the series. Give yourself a treat and read Jane and the Genius of the Place!
Rating:
Summary: What a clever book!
Review: I first read Stephanie Barron's Austen mysteries simply for the pleasure of the narrative, then I began to notice how clever the books were. First she manages to capture the tone of the Regency era very well. (If you question this check out the excellent social history by Venetia Murray, Elegant Madness-- if you want something interesting to contemplate Murray states that 1 pound in that period is equal to 50 pounds now. That means in Pride and Prejudice Mr. D'Arcy's income of 10,000 pounds a year equals 500,000 pounds a year now. Second, her Jane Austen sounds genuine. I had recently reread Austen's works and was surprised by how easily I could imagine Barron's Jane Austen writing those books. Third, Barron is clever enough to suggest but not slavishly copy, statements made in Austen's novels, as though they were made in real life and Austen saved them to use in her fiction. Also the names and natures of Barron's secondary characters also suggest the names and characteristics of characters from Austen's works, again as though Jane had stored them up for future use. Lastly, the thing that made me smile the most was the "editor's" judgement that Susan, as an epistilatory novel, was old fashioned even when it was written-- while Barron is in essense writing a very old fashioned type of tale!
Rating:
Summary: I love the entire series!!
Review: I have thouroughly enjoyed all four books in the series. They are all clever and well-thought out!! I definitely can see Jane Austen as an amateur detective, it seems to match her personality. I hope the author will continue to keep on writing these great mysteries. I'm usually a picky Jane Austen reader, but I have nothing but wonderful things to say about these books.
Rating:
Summary: This series gets better and better
Review: I really liked the first two books in this series when I read them, but this series definitely seems to get better and better as it goes along. The supporting characters grow and the historical details and the connections between history and the fictional plots get stronger. It is especially interesting to have Jane become older and to have her wrestling with the plight of being an unattached older woman, in what she would call somewhat distressed circumstances. This book has some especially nice social scenes and some broadens the Austin extended family a bit. Neddie and his wife Lizzy are just as engaging as Henry and Eliza, who have appeared in the earlier books.
Rating:
Summary: This series gets better and better
Review: I really liked the first two books in this series when I read them, but this series definitely seems to get better and better as it goes along. The supporting characters grow and the historical details and the connections between history and the fictional plots get stronger. It is especially interesting to have Jane become older and to have her wrestling with the plight of being an unattached older woman, in what she would call somewhat distressed circumstances. This book has some especially nice social scenes and some broadens the Austin extended family a bit. Neddie and his wife Lizzy are just as engaging as Henry and Eliza, who have appeared in the earlier books.
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