This is the first in a series featuring Jane Austen as an amateur investigator. A dead body is found at a ball attended by Jane and she is determined to solve this mystery when her brother, Georgie, is found in possession of a necklace belonging to the deceased.

Her investigations led her to question her local neighbours and friends to find out who was the real culprit. Her attempts are pretty scattergun leading her to make many an unfounded accusation and upsetting her friends. However she is determined to save her brother from the hangman.

She is delightful and as expected finds the real culprit in the end!

A gentle, fun cosy mystery.

The plot of this C18 murder mystery is great, with interesting twists and turns, many inspired by contemporary C19 social mores. However, for me it is distracting, rather than entertaining, for the author to base many of the characters on Jane Austen’s family and acquaintances. Even more distracting is the writing style, with the whole novel written in the present tense which seems incongruous in a novel that is firmly set in the past. Restricting use of the historical present only to especially dramatic events would have been more effective. These distractions made what could have been a diverting read a bit of a slog, and I struggled to stay with it.

During a ball at the grand Tudor manor of Lord John and Lady Harcourt, a body is found in the laundry closet, brutally murdered. Enter Jane, fresh from the stolen embrace of her true love Tom Lefroy, who immediately smells a rat! She knows the victim as a Mrs Renault, a milliner she has recently encountered at the Basingstoke market. All seems lost when Jane’s mild-natured non-verbal brother Georgy is arrested but the razor-sharp Austen mind goes into overdrive to discover the actual culprit.

The author, Jessica Bull, has done a nifty job of combining fact and fiction to create an energetic mystery steeped in Georgian Britain. We don’t find the slight and sickly Jane who lives out her spinsterhood with her parents; the Jane of Ms Bull’s world is full of beans and questions and keen to take on the patriarchy. Any close reader of the Austen canon would agree, the clues are there as to Jane Austen’s astute investigative nature and adventurous attitude. I thought all the characters were unique and believable. The destitute family caring for Georgy is lovingly portrayed and a welcome addition.

The plot is well-paced and deliciously enticing. There are cliffhangers, clues and red herrings enough to keep you guessing and reading. The little missives to her sister Cassandra at the end of the chapters serve as a reminder of the suspects and their motives and add to the generous seasoning of good humour that underpins the text. I adore the cover too, a clever take on the silhouette art popular at the time.

I do enjoy a light cosy mystery and this was the best I’ve read in a long while! It’s a fun mash-up so if you’re a fan of Agatha Christie or Richard Osman but you have a hankering to be invited to trip the light fantastic at Bridgerton, this will surely keep you in nights. But not too many, it’s a fast read! Thanks as evert to NetGalleyUK and Penguin Michael Joseph for the eARC.

Let’s quickly cut to the chase - many books offer something along the lines of ‘Miss Austen investigates’, where a much loved character or real person is uprooted and placed in a novel situation and proves to be surprisingly effective in this new setting. Sadly, many such offerings promise much but deliver little. In this case, however, Ms Bull has pulled off a surprising tour de force, in which Miss Austen sets out to prove the innocence of her brother who is accused of a crime that could see him transported, if proven. Certainly, the typical Austen features are there to ensure the reader knows where the story is set and who is involved, but what sets this book apart are well drawn characters working to offer the reader a surprisingly satisfying plot that will delight most who dive into this intriguing story. Strongly recommended.

Good story based on Jane Austin's life as a young woman. It is told the Austin style, but in the present tense. The author has cleverly created characters who resemble many of those in Jane Austins books. The mystery element keeps you guessing until the end. A very enjoyable read

This is Jane Austen as you’ve never seen her before, the beloved writer turns investigator in order to save her brothers life. Jane has been invited to a ball to celebrate the betrothal of the baronet’s son to a rich heiress, but before the big announcement a mystery women is discovered dead in the linen cupboard. Her brother is found in possession of the woman’s necklace, and unable to explain himself is thrown into jail to await trial, where the punishment is either transportation or the hangman’s noose. Jane is determined to ensure this will never happen and sets out to identify the true killer. Her list of suspects reveals many motives and embroils her in scenes unbecoming of a young woman in her position.

This book is so beautifully written in the language of the 18th Century, reflecting the morals and standards of the time and revealing Jane’s frustrations with her position. The research is impeccable to produce a beautiful, genteel read (if Murder can be genteel), with a twist at the end, which you should get if you’ve followed the clues scattered throughout the book. I absolutely loved this novel and eagerly await subsequent investigations

An entertaining story, with quite a gripping plot. It doesn't convey the world of Jane Austen though, as it is full of modern idiom and sensibilities, but if you aren't fussed about historical accuracy this is a very good read.

It’s got to be five stars for Miss Austen Investigates by Jessica Bull! To set the stage – I’m not usually a fan of historical fiction and knew very little about Jane Austen beyond her books before I began reading this. But I really loved it! She made the setting feel completely authentic without weighing the narrative down. The characters felt so real and relatable. And Jane herself is a character I loved and will remember – and hope to see again and again in subsequent books in the series. Things like – for e.g. – the way she signed off her letters to her sister were both so funny and felt very true to her character. The plot is twisty and full of surprises; I didn’t pick the murderer and that’s unusual for me. Recommend this one highly, even if, like me, historical fiction isn’t really your thing. Trust me – it’s such a fun read.

I normally read thrillers but I love Jane Austen and when this popped up on Netgalley, I was super intrigued and requested it.

The story takes place in 1795 and we meet Jane Austen. At a local ball there is a body found in a closet and Jane is pulled into becoming a sleuth. Especially when it appears that her brother is in possession of the deceased necklace, Jane sets out to clear his name.

This book was really well executed and I enjoyed the novel.

A good whodunit read and a new light on Jane Austen.

Thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a chance to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Jessica Bull has made a debut in what promises to be an entertaining and well-drawn out series. This book is premised at a time when Jane Austen was young and falling heads over heels in love with Tom Lefroy. Bull has breathed air into ghost and made Miss Jane Austen quite life-like. She is all impetuous, naive, struggling to find her own way in a man's world, struggling to get herself heard in her own family who presumes to know her even though sometimes they don't, breathlessly in love with a man who let her make sandcastles in the air, fiercely loyal to her brother Georgy, and best of all, growing throughout the book. Jane learns from her presumptions, and she learns from her embarrassing encounters with other people who quite don't like being accused of murder. Aside from the well-drawn Jane Austen, the other characters and setting is quite evocative. I really enjoyed the social commentary on how people who were born with disabilities were treated in the 18th century, and the social commentary on the justice system. Alongside that, I loved the presentation of a family struggling with someone they loved being accused of something that they were innocent of and being all set to be hung. It was beautiful, sorrowful, and quite human. I will be eagerly looking forward to the next book in this series, and being able to hang out with Jane, Martha, Mary and Cassandra (okay, Henry and James too). **For transparency I have received the book from Netgalley for a full and honest review**

Meet Jane Austen as she embarks on the first of a new series of murder mysteries.

Although this is such an astonishingly fabulous concept, Miss Austen Investigates is so much more than just a hook book.

Jessica Bull has managed to perfectly entwine a classic golden era whodunnit with the life and society of one of our greatest ever writers.

Full of all the regency period inclusions that a reader might hope for when picking up a book about Jane Austen, as well as a wonderful cast of suspects and red herrings that you want from a murder mystery.

Absolutely loved it.

It's not easy to write a Jane Austen-inspired novel. There is the weight on the writer that they know Janeites everywhere will be critiquing every last detail, especially when it comes to Jane Austen the author herself making a starring appearance in the book. I give kudos to anyone wanting to take this challenge! I write this review with the disclaimer that 18th-19th century British Lit was my concentration in university, so I know a bit too much about Austen and the Georgian period in general... and it sometimes makes reading fictional takes on real people challenging for me!

At first, I heard Austen. Her voice does come through right at the beginning with the "cast of characters" list. However, the present tense of the novel was most jarring for me, especially for this historical fiction of a real person. I love the idea of playing on Jane's known cleverness for a murder mystery, but in some of her phrases like "that shipped has sailed" pulled me out of the world real fast as they were too anachronistic for Jane's time period. (I believe that particular one came about in the late 1800s after Jane had already died!)

Maybe those with less Jane Austen education in their brain would enjoy this story much more! I think I need to stick to only Austen character spin-offs books rather than reading versions of Jane herself popping up.

Thank you so much for the e-ARC, Michael Joseph/Penguin!

I am no expert on Jane Austen, and I have not read all of her books, but I have read “Emma”, “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and sensibility “ at least three times each. When I started reading this book, the use of language between the characters was frustrating due to the jarring differences of what I expected and when Jane remarked “that ship has sailed” in regard to a lost opportunity, I put the book down in exasperation. Everything felt too coy and cute and certainly didn’t have the eloquence of the Jane Austen novels I have read. After a month or so, I picked the book up again to give it another chance. I felt I slipped away to “Bridgerton”. Once I got in that headspace I accepted the novel as it was. Jane wasn’t what I perceived Jane Austen the writer to be, but what do I know. The mystery was clumsy, but the story did flow. Laura Martin has written a few books with Jane Austen investigating which I feel are more sympathetic to the writer’s books and style. I won’t be following up with this series, but I do appreciate the opportunity to have read it, and I thank netgalley and the publisher.

I think it's always interesting to see fictionalised portrayals of well-known historical figures, and I really liked the way Jane Austen was portrayed here. This was a beautifully written book - in my opinion, it felt similar to reading a classic, and I felt myself escaping into it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free copy to review.

I found the use of the present tense very distracting in this novel, and was not sufficiently enjoying the characterizations or plot to keep going beyond the early stages of the story. While present tense can add a sense of immediacy to a contemporary tale, it felt rather jarring in historical fiction.