Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Oct 2014
336 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
Christmas Eve, 1814: Jane Austen has been invited to spend the holiday with family and friends at The Vyne, the gorgeous ancestral home of the wealthy and politically prominent Chute family. As the year fades and friends begin to gather beneath the mistletoe for the twelve days of Christmas festivities, Jane and her circle are in a celebratory mood: Mansfield Park is selling nicely; Napoleon has been banished to Elba; British forces have seized Washington, DC; and on Christmas Eve, John Quincy Adams signs the Treaty of Ghent, which will end a war nobody in England really wanted.
Jane, however, discovers holiday cheer is fleeting. One of the Yuletide revelers dies in a tragic accident, which Jane immediately views with suspicion. If the accident was in fact murder, the killer is one of Jane's fellow snow-bound guests. With clues scattered amidst cleverly crafted charades, dark secrets coming to light during parlor games, and old friendships returning to haunt the Christmas parties, whom can Jane trust to help her discover the truth and stop the killer from striking again?
"Starred Review. Vivid characters propel the subtle plot to its surprising conclusion. The first-person narration captures Austen's tone as revealed in her letters: candid, loving, and occasionally acerbic." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. [A]n excellent period mystery for all historical fiction fans... Jane Austen devotees will especially appreciate immersing themselves in the many biographical details about Austen that accompany the fictional murder mystery." - Library Journal
"Barron has clearly done her homework in the language and manners of Austen's time… [H]er latest venture edges out competing authors of Regency whodunits." - Kirkus
"[A] good double closed house mystery and an engaging historical novel, with careful descriptions of Georgian Christmas customs." - Booklist
This information about Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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.
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