Name: sani's review of The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray
Item: The Murder of Mr. Wickham
Rating: 4
Author: sani

Claudia Gray

"After many years of happy marriage, Emma Knightley and her husband are throwing a house party, bringing together distant relatives and new acquaintances-not all of whom are well known to the Knightleys but are certainly beloved by every Jane Austen fan: Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy, Marianne and Colonel Brandon, Anne and Captain Wentworth, and Fanny and Edmund Bertram. Very much not invited is Mr. Wickham, whose latest financial scheme has netted him newfound wealth-and a broadening array of enemies. With his unexpected arrival, tempers flare and secrets are revealed, making it clear that everyone would be happier if Mr. Wickham got his comeuppance. Yet the Knightleys and their guests are all shocked when Wickham turns up murdered-except, of course, for the killer hidden in their midst. With everyone a suspect, it falls to the house party's two youngest guests to solve the mystery of who finally delivered to Wickham his just deserts: Juliet Tilney, the smart and resourceful daughter of Catherine and Henry Tilney, eager for adventure outside Northanger Abbey; and Jonathan Darcy, Elizabeth and Darcy's eldest son, whose adherence to propriety makes his father seem relaxed. In a tantalizing fusion of Austen and Christie, the unlikely pair must put aside their own poor first impressions-and uncover the guilty party before an innocent person is sentenced to hang"--

The Murder of Mr. Wickham

Vivi

sani

— 4.5★

oh god, this book was so interesting. the fact that it had all of my favourite characters from emma to sense and sensibility to pride and prejudice. a jane austen merger! AND MR WICKHAM, jane austen's worst villain was murdered which made the book even more interesting. 

also, also, the slow burn but intensifying chemistry between jonathan darcy and juliet tileny WAS so good. hats off to dear claudia for this. 

also i was a nervous mess throughout the book. i kept on doubting each and every character. heck, i even doubted my lomls mr darcy and mr knightley! power of you, dear author.

Alix N

High hopes but a little boring after the first third.

This book was great! Such a fun romp with all of Jane Austen’s characters. That’s right it’s not just the Pride and Prejudice characters but all the couples and some of their children. With such a huge cast, it’s surprising how deftly Claudia Gray has handled their characters past their original source material. Each character feels true to the original but growing which is lovely. The mystery is nice but where this book shines is the characters internal monologues. I enjoyed her original characters of Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney as well as Austen’s especially the younger Darcy’s way of viewing the world. I believe he is supposed to be on the Autism spectrum but in Regency time of course there would no diagnosis. It was refreshing to see that in a historical fiction piece handled so well. There is also a wonderful through line about Religion here that is so well developed. It was very refreshing to have this perspective of Christianity as I truly think it is. There were times the book dragged a little but I do think that has something to do with the changing character perspective. Sometimes it felt like we went through the same character thoughts more often than we probably should have to keep the narrative moving. I would honestly love to read any sequels or other of Claudia Gray’s books.

Emma Miller

Kate Galloway 

I’d probably give this 3.5 stars rounded up to 4. I really did enjoy the book and concept. I think that this book has taught me that I’m a Jane Austen purist and would prefer her wonderful characters to stay in their original stories. I did really like Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tinley. I thought they were really enjoyable characters and were a fun addition. The mystery was a bit lacking in my opinion but, there were some fun moments to it and I was really excited to find out who the culprit was. Overall I’d recommend the book to any Jane Austen fan who wants to see her different characters interact and solve a murder.

Eliza Gonzalez

I tried so hard to like this. I've used up almost all of the days NetGalley so generously gives to read a book just trying to force myself to enjoy this. I even started reading it aloud to myself, accents and all, just in attempt to keep myself entertained. But this story was not for me, and I did eventually DNF it midway and skip to the ending.



  CONS

• Lack of a unique voice. This work felt very deriviative of Agatha Christie. 
• Too many POVs. I think this ties into the author's influence, but the amount of POVs was too ambitious here. It was jarring and often boring to switch POVs every few paragraphs.
• Austen's characters fell extremely flat. I do not think they were done any great justice here. Wickham especially felt like a caricature, like his every waking breath was had only to scheme and be evil. It was over the top.
• It took slightly over a quarter of the novel for Wickham to even die. As the audience knows he will die just from the title of the book, it truly became a slog just to get to it. I was having a fine time for the first 15 percent but after that I was just begging for someone to kill the man and start the mystery already.


  PROS...?

• The original characters were enjoyable. I liked their POVs far more than the other characters and think the story would have benefitted if told only from their POV (perhaps with the rare other character interspersed).
• The author did her best to create realistic depictions of things that could be troubling the Austen characters. Unfortunately for me, I don't care to have the HEA given to me in Austen's books taken away and replaced by rocky marriages, but I can respect the hustle.
• The writing is well done. Sometimes, stories set in other time periods can feel off or as if the author has not done any research.
• My initial theory for what happened to Wickham was wrong, and I usually dislike mysteries for figuring things out too quickly. Props.
• I don't think the book is terrible, but rather not for me. I am admittedly very picky, but I can see why people could enjoy this more than myself. 


Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for the ARC. Wish I'd liked it more.

Sabetha Danes

Claudia Gray has captured the essences of Pride and Prejudice to a masterful level.

If you're looking for a book that reads much like the works of Jane Austen, look no further. The Murder of Mr. Wickham will drop you years into the future from the events of Pride and Prejudice and lull you into a the world with new characters joining old favorites. She plot drops events from that book, so if you haven't read it, don't worry. It is unneeded to enjoy this story. Every character with Jane's beloved tale is also mentioned by name so you are aware of how they faired over the past decades.

However, if you are in search of something that has the essences but with a modern writing style you will be a tad bored with this read. It took me well over a month to finish the story mostly because the writing was more telling than showing and very dull. Instead of people visiting houses, it's people visiting rooms.

While I adore Jane Austen, her writing style is representative of her time period. This book would have been much more enjoyable if the author brought the world to life with the modern way to tell a story. By showing the characters move through the plot, instead of telling us how it happened to them through so much introspectiveness and point blank telling.

That aside, we find Mr. Wickham up to his same old devious games, and dead within the half of the book. (Yes, it takes far too long to get to the body, which adds to the boredom of it all.) The mystery was well laid out and I loved the way Johnathan Darcy and Miss Tinley played into the story. It was a clean mystery that had you discovering dirty secrets through connecting with members of the party throughout the unraveling of the culprit. I was surprised by the twist at the end, and glad with how everything turned out.

I could see this turning into a mystery series, with the two amateur sleuths at the helm.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

Vivi &
The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray

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