I don’t know about you, but I love a cosy mystery. I grew up on a diet of Midsomer Murders and one of my favourite period dramas of all time is Endeavour, which follows the young Inspector Morse through through the 1960s and into the 1970s. It is even better when these kind of mysteries are translated to the page, and of course, the best when the cosy mystery genre is given an Austenesque spin: which is why I am so excited to share (in a spoiler-free way, of course!) this book with you today.

When Austenprose and Vintage Books offered me the chance to take part in a book tour for Claudia Gray’s new book, I jumped at the chance when I read the first few lines of the blurb: a mystery in which Mr Jonathan Darcy, son of Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam of Pemberley, and Miss Juliet Tilney, daughter of Catherine and Henry of Northanger Abbey, team up to solve a murder mystery upon a visit to Devonshire.

What Austen fan doesn’t love a continuation, the imaginings of the lives of the characters beyond the novels coming to life on the page? (Especially when we get to see the continuing happiness of beloved characters like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy…)

And Gray has expertly brought together Austen’s characters, and their imagined children, together in this second book in her series of Mr. Darcy and Miss. Tilney Mysteries. The first, The Murder of Mr. Wickham, saw our amateur sleuths meet for the first time.

In The Late Mrs. Willoughby, Jonathan has been invited to Allenham, to stay with his old schoolmate: the dastardly Mr. John Willoughby, recently married to a woman of great fortune and inheritor of his aunt’s estate. Of course, Mr. Willoughby was not Jonathan’s friend, but a bully, but Jonathan feels he must go.

Yet, a pleasant surprise occurs when Jonathan arrives in Devonshire society: staying at Delaford, with Marianne and Colonel Brandon, is his friend Juliet. As their paths further cross, disaster strikes: Sir John and Lady Middleton throw a party designed to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby back to Devonshire, at which Mrs. Willoughby suffers a terrible death from a poisoned glass of port.

Old habits die hard, and Jonathan and Juliet reunite to begin solving the mystery.

Gray brings to life the characters, and environs, ostensibly of Sense and Sensibility. From Allenham, to Delaford, to Barton, it is a great revisiting of the people and places we came to love – and hate! – in Austen’s novel. She blends Austen’s characters with her own, adding other schoolfriends from Willoughby and Jonathan’s younger days, and Jonathan and Juliet fit in so well, as well as the reworking of Austen’s source material to the mystery genre, it’s hard not to believe Austen didn’t create it so.

I like to think that Catherine Morland’s mystery- and gothic-loving spirit lives on in Gray’s novel, particularly through her daughter. Austen was a great lover of the work of Ann Radcliffe, the pioneering gothic romance writer, and Northanger Abbey is often seen as her own satire on the gothic novel. I think Gray has picked up on these aspects without pushing them too far.

It is a fun way to reimagine Austen, or, indeed, take her work further. If you’ve been following this blog for a while (and if so, thank you!!) you’ll know that I am very much a fan of any kind of continuation of, or retelling of Austen, especially if it blends genres. I took this book away with me on holiday and it was the perfect read to relax with.

The way Gray writes is with a witty pen that I think Austen may have approved of: so I hope, if you pick up a copy of this novel (which was published just last week, on May 16th), or its predecessor (as I have – though I was gifted this novel, I enjoyed it so much I bought the other book in the series), that you enjoy cosying up with the detective powers of Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney as much as I did.

Thank you to Austenprose and Vintage Books for gifting me a copy of The Late Mrs. Willoughby in exchange for an honest review.