Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

Series: Jane Austen Mysteries, Book 1

By: Stephanie Barron / Narrated By: Kate Reading

Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins

SUCH potential! Soooooo boring…!

Boooooo! Hisssss!

I went into Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor all twiddles and excitement cuz I already have Jane and the Stillroom Maid in my Library, and that puppy is Book FIVE. So I was absolutely thrilled when these earlier novels became available as audiobooks as I don’t >ahem< do print books any more (Have the attention span of a gnat). Imagine: Here I am doing an All Things Jane Austen week of listening, and I actually get to add in something kinda sorta different: A Mystery! Oh huzzah, right?

Uhm, wellll, nooooo… not really.

I dunno, maybe it’s the whole attention-span-of-a-gnat thing, but yeh I’ll ding myself for that. That dinged, however, I've gotta get into what was a sore disappointment for me, and that which had my eyes rolling back up into their sockets in boredom.

Let’s get the writing style outta the way—It’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination. That Jane circulated in such high circles that she’d have a friend who, yes yes yes, through marriage, is the Countess of Scargrave? Okay. That she should be soooo confident moving in such rarified air, hmm, not after listening to the biography Jane Austen at Home. Yes, the woman was a wit, when she wasn’t reticent, but here in this book, she’s just flat out in-your-face. She knows no fear. And I had a problem with that as, through her novels, we see the author as someone who has a daring tongue, yup, but it’s quite often planted firmly in cheek.

The premise: That secret journals Jane Austen kept have been discovered in Maryland in the 20th century. They show that the author, a keen observer of manners and mores, was also a keen reasoner, deducing many a thing from the smallest of occurrences. It still sounds great. We have the possibilities for sequels, and it’s entertaining as all get-out to think of a person that her family said had an uneventful life having The Time of Her Life—getting into all sorts of scrapes and adventures and sleuthing her way out, documenting her thoughts and feelings as she goes along.

And Stephanie Barron writes it fairly decently, in keeping with the drawroom manners of the day, but her dialogue isn’t as witty as it can be, plus, the narrative is CONstantly interrupted with Footnotes for the modern day listener. Don’t get me wrong; had I NOT wallowed in, like, a gazillion and six audiobooks set in the time period (And the bio I listened to has Austen firmly as Georgian, thoooooo’ the times teeter soooo close to the Regency… dunno… I’m all confused now…), the Footnotes maaaaay’ve been appreciated. They bring up such things as how individuals are addressed—Are they aristocracy by birth/peerage, or did they marry into it; are they firstborn or second, third born; are they called after their estates/titles or are they referred to by last name. Things of that ilk. Could be helpful, but when you’re trying to get into a story, it doesn’t zip along so much as it comes to a comPLETE halt for Every. Single. Little explanation. Booooo!

Jane visits her friend Isobel, the new (Married for just three months) Countess of Scargrave for a party. Soon, Isobel’s husband is struck down and, gasp! with all the vomiting and writhing, could it have been that the gentleman was poisoned? Many a person could’ve had a motive for offing the man, but an accusatory letter appears, damning Isobel, who is further damned after an inquest/kinda sorta trial.

She puts all her faith in Jane to exonerate her, and this is s’posed to lead to manners and mayhem and a rollicking good time.

It doesn’t. The language is fine, especially as Jane writes to herself, but the dialogue doesn’t sparkle, and there’s really not much going on. Things go along tra la la la la, another murder occurs, tra la la la la, Jane has a couple of close calls. And through it all? BANG! FOOTNOTES! Talk about getting taken out of the era of manners: We get stuck with 20th century language juuuuust when we miiiiiight have been barely getting into it.

But like I said, not much happens, and when something finally DID happen? BANG again: It was over. All, I’m assuming, in an effort to wrap things up neatly but with enough whimsy that we’re supposed to dash off, highly engaged now that some action took place, to get the next in the series.

Add to that Kate Reading as narrator. Okay, I’m kinda a fan of the woman as she knocks it outta the park whenever she narrates (I’m totally thinking of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive audiobooks that she deftly handles along with her husband, Michael Kramer). But the woman is most assuredly putting an English accent on; she does it well, but whyyyyy not get a jolly ol’ Brit to do the honors? Besides which, Reading can sometimes deliver some pretty flat reading. (Reading reading! Get it? Ha! …sorry…)

Whatever. I’d been looking forward to a series for some good old fashioned Credit Spending.

As it turns out?

Looks like I’m gonna be using my credits for David R. Lewis and his The Trail series.

Does NOT look like I’m gonna be hitting Book Five any time soon…