Excerpt from Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron (Austenprose PR Blog Tour)

 

I am thrilled to be a part of the Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron Book Tour.  I LOVED this novel and this entire series.  My review can be found at this link.  Author Stephanie Barron has written another fascinating novel that captures the "voice" of Jane Austen as a character.  It's set during the interesting summer of 1816 that Jane and her sister Cassandra spent in the Cheltenham Spa in Glouchestershire.  Stephanie Barron also stopped by to chat about this book and her new series at the JASNA Northwoods book club.  We were delighted to have her and learned so much!  Now without further ado, an excerpt from the novel as Jane meets other guests that are boarding with her in Cheltenham.

Jane and the Year Without a Summer Excerpt 

“Mrs. Smith.” Pellew had removed his tricorn and now

bowed to his fellow-lodger. “I hope I see you in good health,

ma’am?”

“Captain,” she replied, “I am very well, I thank you.” At

that instant, she perceived me standing at a little remove

from them both, and stepped impulsively in my direction.

“Miss Austen. I must beg your pardon, I was very rude to

you last night! Only think, Captain, this lady is our fellow lodger—

may I introduce Captain Pellew to your notice,

ma’am?—and I had barely made her acquaintance before I

ran away in a fretful temper!”

“You had barely eaten dinner, too, I warrant,” Captain

Pellew replied shrewdly. “Miss Austen, your servant.”

I dropped the gentleman a curtsey. “I detected no rudeness,

Mrs. Smith, I assure you. Only perhaps a certain

disinclination for company, which any of us might feel at

the close of a long day.”

“You are very good,” the young woman told me. Her eyes,

which were moss-green flecked with amber, studied me

gravely for an instant, then warmed. “You will have detected

Miss Garthwaite’s disapproval, I am sure. I shall forestall

that excellent lady’s gossip, and warn you myself that I am a

scandalous creature, an intimate of Mr. John Bowles Watson’s

Cheltenham Theatre, undeserving of genteel notice. I give

you leave to cut me direct, and shall never reproach your taste.”

“Nonsense,” Captain Pellew said roughly. “I have known

Mrs. Smith nearly all my life, Miss Austen, and I may assure

you there is no one more respectable. Her humour, perhaps,

is capricious.” He gestured at her volume. “Do you undertake

to master comedy, ma’am? I had thought Shakespeare more

your suit. Caesar, wasn’t it, last week?”

“Indeed. And my work was rewarded—the play is to

be mounted in two days’ time, and Jasper bids fair to be a

charming Brutus. But this,” she explained with a wave of

the Sheridan, “is next week’s bill—and Tess is to play Lady

Teazle.”

“Good Lord!” A smile suffused Pellew’s countenance,

transforming it instantly. “Watson doesn’t ask much. Lady

Teazle! He might as well demand you turn loaves into fish.”

“She’ll look like an angel.”

“Tess always does,” he agreed. “That isn’t the trouble. She’ll

also open her mouth.”

I must have knit my brows in confusion, for the Captain

explained, “Mrs. Smith is charged with a heavy duty, ma’am.

She is required to instruct the members of Mr. Watson’s

company to speak the King’s English.”

“Are they . . . French?” I suggested.

“No, no,” Mrs. Smith replied on a laugh. “Merely

unschooled.”

“Mrs. Smith turns any number of sows’ ears into silk purses

before the curtain rises.” Captain Pellew’s lips pursed. “She

makes the worst Back Alley Tom sound like a lord, and every

barmaid a duchess. Gives them proper airs, too, and notes on

how to raise a quizzing glass.”

“You instruct the traveling company,” I said wonderingly,

“in . . . elocution? And genteel behaviour?”

“Someone must.” The young lady’s features were alight

with mischief. “And I will own that, save for those lacking

all talent, actors are in general quick studies. Most are ambitious—

and to acquire refinement, in voice and air, is to gain

a distinct professional advantage. The theatre is unforgiving.

Pretty faces age, but graces do not.”

“Tess has not the slightest scrap of talent,” Captain Pellew

said. “I wish you joy of her.”

“You’re sadly correct.” Mrs. Smith’s mouth curved. “And

as I am already a quarter-hour behind in my duty, I have not

another second to waste. Adieu! ”

She parted from us with a friendly nod.

Pellew’s eyes followed her through the throng of library

patrons, as tho’ he had forgot my presence. But in this I was

mistaken.

“There goes one of the most admirable women of my

acquaintance,” he said. “I do not know what Miss Garthwaite

may have said of her—all manner of nonsense, no doubt!—

but I would urge you to form your own opinion.”

“I make a habit of doing so,” I replied.

 

Chapter 7, pages 66-68

 

QUICK FACTS

·       Title: Jane and the Year Without a Summer

·       Series: Being a Jane Austen Mystery (Book 14)

·       Author: Stephanie Barron

·       Genre: Historical Mystery, Austenesque

·       Publisher: Soho Press (February 8, 2022)

·       Length: (336) pages

·       Format: Hardcover, eBook, & audiobook 

·       ISBN: 978-1641292474

·       Tour Dates: February 7-20, 2022

 

BOOK DESCRIPTION

 
May 1816: Jane Austen is feeling unwell, with an uneasy stomach, constant fatigue, rashes, fevers and aches. She attributes her poor condition to the stress of family burdens, which even the drafting of her latest manuscript—about a baronet's daughter nursing a broken heart for a daring naval captain—cannot alleviate. Her apothecary recommends a trial of the curative waters at Cheltenham Spa, in Gloucestershire. Jane decides to use some of the profits earned from her last novel, Emma, and treat herself to a period of rest and reflection at the spa, in the company of her sister, Cassandra.
 
Cheltenham Spa hardly turns out to be the relaxing sojourn Jane and Cassandra envisaged, however. It is immediately obvious that other boarders at the guest house where the Misses Austen are staying have come to Cheltenham with stresses of their own—some of them deadly. But perhaps with Jane’s interference a terrible crime might be prevented. Set during the Year without a Summer, when the eruption of Mount Tambora in the South Pacific caused a volcanic winter that shrouded the entire planet for sixteen months, this fourteenth installment in Stephanie Barron’s critically acclaimed series brings a forgotten moment of Regency history to life.

 

ADVANCE PRAISE

Advance Praise

“Outstanding...Barron fans will hope Jane, who died in 1817, will be back for one more mystery.”— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“No one conjures Austen's voice like Stephanie Barron, and Jane and the Year Without a Summer is utterly pitch-perfect.”— Deanna Raybourn, bestselling author of the Veronica Speedwell Mysteries

“…a page-turning story, imbued with fascinating historical detail, a cast of beautifully realized characters, a pitch-perfect Jane Austen, and an intriguing mystery. Highly recommended.”— Syrie James, bestselling author of The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen

“Jane and the Year Without a Summer is absolute perfection. Stephanie Barron expertly weaves fact and fiction, crafting a story that is authentically Austen in its elegance, charm, and wit. The characters and setting will enchant you, and the mystery will keep you guessing to the last page. This Regency-set gem is truly a diamond of the first water.”— Mimi Matthews, USA Today bestselling author of The Siren of Sussex

 

PURCHASE LINKS

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOK DEPOSITORY | BOOKSHOP | BOOKBUB | GOODREADS

 

AUTHOR BIO

Francine Mathews was born in Binghamton, New York, the last of six girls. She attended Princeton and Stanford Universities, where she studied history, before going on to work as an intelligence analyst at the CIA. She wrote her first book in 1992 and left the Agency a year later. Since then, she has written twenty-five books, including five novels in the Merry Folger series (Death in the Off-Season, Death in Rough Water, Death in a Mood Indigo, Death in a Cold Hard Light, and Death on Nantucket) as well as the nationally bestselling Being a Jane Austen mystery series, which she writes under the penname, Stephanie Barron. She lives and works in Denver, Colorado.

 

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