The Suspicion at Sanditon (Or, The Disappearance of Lady Denham) 

A Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mystery by Carrie Bebris

Reviewed by Gerti

Carrie Bebris has made her career turning the adventures of Jane Austen's beloved characters from " Pride and Prejudice", Fitzwilliam Darcy and his bride Elizabeth Bennett, into sleuths.  This series has worked out well for her, but like many of her fans, I wondered what would happen when she finished the 6th book in the series, since Jane Austen only ever finished 6 novels.  "The Suspicion at Sanditon" (Or, The Disappearance of Lady Denham) solves that mystery for her fans.

Luckily for Bebris, Austen left several fragmentary novels, and "Sanditon" was one of them.  So here, her husband and wife mystery team makes their way to the seaside town on the rise, Sanditon.  They meet the characters that Austen originally penned, Miss Charlotte Heywood, the Parker family with it's several peculiar siblings, and the wealthy widow, Lady Denham.  But here the mystery commences when the childess widow goes missing during a dinner party to which all the characters have been invited.  So many suspects, and much misdirection as several other dinner guests also go missing!  Finally, under the Darcy's careful attention, the mystery is solved, while romances are made (and dissolved!) and fortunes are gained (and lost!)

The mystery began many decades before when the daughter of Sanditon House's resident hermit went missing.  The girl's name was Ivy Woodcock, and while she is now the principle mystery in the village of Sanditon, she also has a deep connection to Sanditon House and its resident family, the Hollises.  The son of the house was in love with her before she went missing, and his father disapproved, of course.  So was there foul play, or something even more interesting?  The neighboring house, inhabited by the equally wealthy Denham family, is hoping to get a share of the inheritance, since Lady Denham married their father, now also deceased.  An a Hollis is also hanging around, hoping that the old lady will think kindly about the original residents of the house in which she now dwells, and return the place to that family.

Yes, there are many suspects, and the truth, as Bebris finds it, is even more peculiar.  Bebris' writing is wonderful as always, and really carries with it the tone of Austen's orginal.  Unlike so many authors, she can adopt the style of the wildly popular British author without getting bogged down in her sometimes convoluted syntax and antiquated terminology.  Bebris does a fine job of modernizing this work so it doesn't sound like another Regency romance writers has pounded it out, but what she can't help is that so few Austen fans really know the characters from Sanditon.  I've read all of Austen, but was much happier in the mysteries derived from "Pride and Prejudice" or "Sense and Sensibility" than in this less familiar world.  And there are so many characters in Susten's work that Bebris has to include them all, which made it all kind of confusing to this reader.  Too many Parker's, and too many Denham's, and how many generations do we have to go back to get to Ivy?  In short, I enjoyed the book just to hang out with Darcy and Elizabeth for a time, but would probably have to read it again to get every nuance straight, so it's probably my least favorite Darcy mystery set Bebris has written.

 Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope

Review by Gerti

Let me start by saying that it takes enormous cheek for a writer of any reputation and ability to name her book after one which is already considered a classic. I think Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” qualifies as such, and Austen is a popular enough author that many people know of the novel, even if they haven’t read it. So for Joanna Trollope (who?) to name her novel the same thing, and to use many of the same characters, is an outrage to me.

I’m sure Trollope, a popular author of many other books and an Austen fan, would say that she has just modernized Austen’s story, and therefore has the right to use the characters and just loosen things up a bit, morally speaking, and throw in some modern tech, like computers and Facebook. Since I’ve read many other Austen-homage books, I should be comfortable with that sort of thing, done successfully in “The Jane Austen Book Club” and “Austenland”, among other texts. But none of those authors were bold enough to just call their books “Pride and Prejudice” or any of Austen’s other well-known titles, and I don’t think Trollope should have taken that liberty, either. Her work pales by comparison.

As for the story Trollope writes, it follows the direction of Austen’s work, even if Trollope has added embellishments, like giving first names to characters like Mrs. Dashwood, the mother of Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, and to Colonel Brandon. While Brandon retains most of his dignified character from the original, “Belle” Dashwood comes off as an unlikeable, selfish hippy. Her imprudence (at not marrying Mr. Dashwood in the first place) sets up the fall from grace for the family of four women, as they are sent from their house at Norland when Henry Dashwood’s son (by his real wife) inherits the estate. Elinor is still the sensible daughter, and she recognizes the need to get work when they are sent packing, but neither Belle nor Marianne, the younger daughter, are grounded enough in reality to feel the need to contribute financially to the family’s survival. Marianne is young, which makes her sin of selfishness more forgivable, but it is intolerable to have middle-aged Belle simply live off the charity of a relative (Sir John Middleton) or her daughter’s paycheck. Belle also tries to mooch off of Mrs. Jennings when country living gets too boring for her, but fortunately the old lady is wise to her manipulative ways and does not ask her to join her in London.

But is the story worth reading? Yes, I suppose it is, for desperate Austen fans, but mainly for the ending, where Trollope goes beyond Austen’s story and has Edward’s mother forgive him for his youthful indiscretion with Lucy Steele, and give him a little money. The end also finds Fanny Dashwood getting a comeuppance by her mother, whom she is trying to manipulate so she’ll cut her brother Robert out of her will, as she did with her brother Edward. The mother doesn’t fall for it, which makes this reader for one cheer to see Fanny thwarted in at least one of her greedy escapades. As for “Trollope’s voice” which is vaunted by a cover blurb praising the author, I find it sadly unequal to Austen’s original.