A Jane Austen Encounter
July 1st, 2014. Filed under: WILD Cards.
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between!
A Jane Austen Encounter
By Donna Fletcher Crow
English professors Elizabeth and Richard celebrate twenty years of marriage with their dream vacation: visiting Jane Austen’s homes. But not even the overpowering personality of their Oxford guide nor the careful attentions of their new friends can ward off lurking alarms. When a box of old documents is donated to the Jane Austen Centre in Bath Richard helps sort through it. Later that night he finds the Centre’s director bleeding on her office floor. Could the letter that has gone missing lead to new revelations about Jane’s unfinished manuscript The Watsons?
Join Elizabeth and Richard on their tour: Visit all the sites so redolent of Jane Austen and her characters in the beautiful city of Bath; stay in the Chawton House Library to visit the charming cottage where Jane’s writing flowered and the nearby Steventon church where her father was rector; stand by her grave in Winchester Cathedral; and enjoy your time at the lovely country estate of Godmersham. But don’t let your guard down. Evil lurks even in the genteel world of Jane Austen.
ISLAND BREEZES
What a great holiday spending time in England visiting the places beloved author Jane Austen lived. But even dead, Jane managed to fill their tour with mysteries and danger.
“Logic can be such an inconvenient thing.” I really liked this musing of Elizabeth.
I truly enjoyed my encounter with Elizabeth and Richard Spenser, and look forward to many more.
I’ve never read a Donna Fletcher Crow novel that I didn’t enjoy. I’ve read all The Monastery Murders and will be following Richard and Elizabeth from now on.
***A special thank you to Donna Fletcher Crow for providing a review copy.***
AN EXCERPT
Elizabeth nibbled at a delicate cucumber sandwich and recounted their long-ago adventures to Richard. But they obviously weren’t lighthearted memories for her husband. He reached across the table and took her hand. “Don’t. When I think of you being in danger. . .”
Elizabeth laughed. “I don’t think I was ever in serious danger. Still, I wouldn’t want to be chasing murderers again.”
Richard gave her one of his wonderful, eye-crinkling smiles. “Little fear there, not with lovely, civilized Jane. No murder, no sex, no zombies.”
“Definitely no zombies! You’ll find us all purists here. Guaranteed.” Elizabeth started at the clipped, English voice of the newcomer and looked up at a woman with blunt-cut iron grey hair, her broad shoulders encased in a shocking purple blouse. . .
DONNA FLETCHER CROW IS an author of historical novels including the epic Glastonbury, A Novel of Christian England, which was awarded First
Place in Historical Fiction by the National Federation of Press Women. Donna lives and writes in Boise, Idaho. She has four adult children and 11
grandchildren. Her newest series is The Monastery Murders: A Very Private Grave and A Darkly Hidden Truth. Donna invites her readers to learn
more about her books and research trips, see pictures of her garden and write to her through her website: www.DonnaFletcherCrow.com
July 2nd, 2014 at 12:58
Thank you so much for the lovely review! I’m so glad you enjoyed Elizabeth and Richard’s latest adventure!
July 2nd, 2014 at 14:26
I’m definitely looking forward to more of their adventures along with your next Monastery Murders book.
July 2nd, 2014 at 15:27
Thank you, Nancy. Coming up soon will be a prequel–telling of their first meeting in 1984 with Elswyth Thane and Rudyard Kipling in the background. Then Jane Austen in London. Always more stories to tell!!
July 4th, 2014 at 21:23
I hope you never run out of stories.