Overall, it is a good writing. It is a little slow-paced and it is good to see all the old characters and new characters.. I was a bit anxious to find out the murder and the ending finally made me feel relieved.

The Murder of Mr. Wickham is a well written mystery. Claudia Gray’s clever idea to revisit Austen’s characters and bring them together for a house party seems inspired. An unwelcome George Wickham arrives, and as Austen fans know, no one deserves an untimely end more than George Wickham.

Yet, even after his murder, Wickham was still a huge presence in the book. His shadow cast a pall over everyone and everything. The author was perhaps using this to further the idea that everyone was a suspect with valid motives, yet it made the book’s tone gloomy and grim.

Perhaps the tone could have been more along the lines of a cozy mystery where the murder is secondary to the lives of the characters. I was sad to see beloved Austen characters so unhappy. There wasn’t the wit and humor I associate with Jane Austen.

The new characters of Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney were nice additions. The way the author handled Jonathan’s spectrum depiction was well done. I liked the burgeoning romance between these two characters.

I liked The Murder of Mr. Wickham okay, but I wanted to love it.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Reader friends, when I say I squealed upon getting approved for this arc, I mean I SQUEALED. This was one of my most anticipated books of 2022 and for me, it didn't disappoint!

I will say, the story does start a bit slow as it introduces all of the characters of the house party. Those who are Austen fans will recognize (and be thrilled by) the cast of characters who show up to Emma and Mr. Knightley's home! It definitely picks up when the murder occurs and I spent the remainder of the book riveted. It was already easy to loathe Mr. Wickham and in this story, there is literally nothing redeeming about his character left. By the time it occurs, I felt ready for someone to get him "out of the way"!

While the story is primarily told through the point of view of Jonathan Darcy (son of Lizzie and Darcy) and Juliet Tilney (daughter of Catherine and Henry), you get the point-of-views of all of the other characters as well. I will say, I do wish the POV had stayed just with Jonathan and Juliet because I think having the POV of everyone slowed it down a bit. However, I absolutely loved seeing Gray's take on "where are they now." Not all is sunshine and roses and many, if not most, of the characters experience some sort of growth of sorts.

If you are a fan of Austen, or Christie, or both, I highly recommend! I'm not sure if a sequel is intended, but I do think it was left open enough at the end to suggest a possibility!

Yes, yes, yes! Finally an Agatha Christie-style “who-done-it?”, but with all our favorite (and less so) Jane Austen character. This is the book I didn’t know I needed but now I want more more more!! When the Darcy’s host a country party and the villainous Mr. Wickham is found dead, our heroine, Juliet Tilney is compelled to find the murderer. The pacing and ambiance reminded me deeply of Northanger Abbey, which was fitting for a Tilney heroine. Juliet is wide-eyed and naive, but also clever and she balances our hero, Jonathan Darcy well. Our young Mr. Darcy was an apple off his father’s tree for certain. Maybe neurodivergent/neuroatypical? Darcy struggles with socializing and is hyper-focused on the rules, more than how to properly navigate them. He is quirky and charming, just as his father was. You too will fall in love and won’t want to put this down!

Thank you so much NetGalley & the publisher for this advanced copy, in exchange for my unbiased opinion!

Such a fun murder mystery, with a dash of wit and romance! It kept me guessing all the way to the end and I was honestly shocked to find out who committed the crime. It was a treat to see all of Austen’s beloved characters again and a few new ones that would do her proud.

I've read every Jane Austen book except for Sense and Sensibility, although it's been a while since I picked one up. The main couple from almost every one of these books appears here, and everyone has a POV to some extent. Even with my prior knowledge of the characters, I had to pause pretty frequently in the first few chapters to remind myself who was who. All this to say that this book had a fairly slow start. But once it got going, I was hooked. There are some books you can't put down. This is one that I put down, tried to switch to another book I'm currently reading for a little while, but just had to come back because I couldn't get it off my mind.

The mystery element wasn't perfect - there are a couple of clues taken as fact that seemed uncertain to me - but it unfolds in such a satisfying way. When the murder is finally solved, everything makes so much sense.

One thing that bothered me a bit is that there's a lot of (eventually challenged) homophobia for a book with no on-page queer characters (there's one off-page). Normally my problem with heavily allocishet books is that they don't allow space for even the possibility of queerness. However, I think I'd have preferred that to queerness being brought in for the sake of straight characters' development.

CW: homophobia (including homophobia rooted in Christianity), sexual harassment, murder, past family member deaths (illness), referenced past miscarriage, repeated use of an anti-Roma slur

Imagine a house full of guests for a month-long house party and then there is a murder! What a great premise for a whodunit.
The characters alone are reminiscent of Jane Austen: the Darcys, the Wentworths, the Bertrams, and the Knightleys . Mr. Wickham is a nefarious character who shows up uninvited and is not well liked by some guests in attendance. To top it off, he gives a bad first impression as an arrogant, selfish, and greedy man. A perfect villain. When a storm brews shortly after his arrival, it traps all the guests in the house, but they try to carry on and play by the accepted and expected rules of society. It takes a bit of time to get a gist of the plot and to understand the connections of all the characters to Mr. Wickham and how they are all threatened by his presence. This was confusing. Then, the youngest guest, Juliet Tilney, discovers Mr. Wickham has been murdered. Together with the young Jonathan Darcy, who is pretty socially inept, Juliet and Jonathan set out to figure out just who is the murderer and form a lovely friendship as well.

I really love a good mystery especially with twists and turns, but I had a hard time with this one. It took a lot of time to set up the mystery and the murder. With so many narrators in this story and side plots, that it became a bit difficult to keep track. I loved the premise however and the cleverness of the Austen characters themselves. But with all the false leads and side stories, I just wanted to know who killed Mr. Wickham and why. Not giving away the end, I felt disappointed with the end the characters reactions.

Many thanks to #netgalley #themurderofmrwickham #knopfdoubledaypublishinggroup for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I thought I would be the ideal audience for this book-- a trapped in the house mystery featuring only Jane Austen characters! Sign me up! But I found the plot cumbersome and slow. Gray is too interested in writing Austen's characters and not interested enough in telling her story. She should have made the only two POV characters Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney, the next generation characters trying to solve the crime. Also I thought I didn't like Mansfield Park, but I sure don't hate it as much as Ms. Gray seems to. One interesting note is that Jonathan Darcy is autistic (of course undiagnosed because of the time period).

I love all things Austen. Especially Pride and Prejudice. So of course the title caught my attention. Someone murdering one of the most deceitful men in literature. I have to read it.

Then when I read the description was a six way crossover between all Jane Austen novels I was sold. I couldn't wait to read it. I was not disappointed.

The Murder of Mr. Wickham starts off with an explanation of the creative license Claudia Gray took when making this book. Mostly revolving around the timeline of the six Austen books. This sets up how all these characers can be in the same place at the same time. If you are a historical scholar I suggest you read it so you are not distracted by inconsistencies.

Now the book starts with Emma and Mr. Knightley - who have been maried for some time now - wanting to host a month long dinner party. Emma has invited her friends Mr. and Mrs. Brandon and the daugher of the Tilney's. Mr. Knightley invites schoolmate Fitzwilliam Darcy and his family as well as his cousin Edmund Bertram and his bride. In addition, Captain and Mrs. Wentworth will be in attendance after some trouble at their home.

Everyone knows it will start off rocky but after some time they are sure everyone will warm up to one another. That is until an uninvited guest by the name of George Wickham shows up. Everyone present has had some dealing with Wickham. And no one is better from the relation. All parties present - save MIss Tilney - have a reason or more to dislike the man.

So when Geoge Wickham dies in the night everyone is a suspect in the murder. Everyone has a motive, most do not have an alibi, and no one else could have done it. When it is believed an innocent person may be blamed for the murder Juliet Tilney and Jonathan Darcy - the eldest son of the Darcy's - decide to investigate to find the guilty party.

Claudia Gray does an outstanding job of giving each character a voice without the reader becoming overwhelmed. Gray even hints at storylines from the original books that makes anyone familiar with Austen novels smile. Additionally, Gray keeps readers on the edge of their seat. I was questioning who it was until the last second.

A beautiful, fun, and suspenseful page turner that you will not want to put down.

I was quite excited for this book, but overall it fell a little flat.

I think the main issue was the reader was pulled in so many directions that the plot moved so slow. It would have been better, in my opinion, if we just had the POVs of Juliet Tilney and Jonathan Darcy.

Also, this might be a bit spoiler-y, but there was not nearly enough romance in this book!! I definitely wanted more than we got.

I know Claudia Gray is a big Jane Austen fan and I definitely appreciate the love she has for these characters, but I think I would have preferred it if she would have stayed out of their heads and taken a greater focus on the new generation. I think that would have made for a stronger and more interesting plot.

Good juicy fun. A Clue-style murder mystery with Jane Austen's best characters. What's not to love?

The author's attempt at mimicking Jane Austen's style was a bit heavy-handed (I don't recall Austen mentioning etiquette quite so often or directly), but she did a good job of recreating the character's voices and infusing the story with modern sensibilities. Having the two main characters new and unique but mixing among old beloved ones worked really well. A bit predictable at the end, but an enjoyable read nonetheless.

A house party that was supposed to be a a fun time during the summer season, turns into a house of horrors so to speak involving a murder. The murder of Mr. Wickham a man with many enemies. Enemies that were all at this wonderful house party. Enemies that were all tied to our beloved Jane Austen. Which one of these beloved characters would want this retched Mr. Wickham dead.
Could it be the the The Knightley's who are the loving couple throwing this house party. Or was it one of the number of guests that were in attendance who finally found a way of disposing that horrible horrible man. There were two young people who decided to team up and find out who the killer really was. They were Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney. Their investigation into Mr. Wickham's death had its ups and downs. Since they were young and of the opposite sex it became harder and harder to meet and discuss their findings in the case. They had to avoid causing a scandal of two young people being together unchaperoned . Plus Jonathan would have to bear the brunt of his father Mr. Darcy's disappointment plus the fact his farther was a suspect.
Ms. Gray had many characters to display in this novel. I loved how she intertwined each character to Mr. Wickham. Everyone was joined through him which wasn't always pretty. She really made him a horrible horrible person. I wouldn't have blamed anyone of these characters to have wanted him dead.
The only real problem I had with this book was that it took a real long time to get to the end and find out who did the dirty deed so to speak. A few times it dragged and it was hard for me to finish. Then the next chapters would roll along and I couldn't put it down.I really did like how Ms. Gray tied up the story. The little bonus at the end. This was an interesting who done it especially because of the wonderful Austen characters. Maybe Mr. Wickham should have thought twice before crashing this house party. Yet I myself wasn't upset that he ended up the way he did.
Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing for the ARC copy. Totally enjoyed it.

In The Murder of Mr. Wickham, characters from Jane Austen's best known novels come together for a house party, crashed by the dastardly George Wickham, who ends up murdered. The cross-over of known characters was enjoyable. Claudia Gray sets up a timeline that puts Pride and Prejudice about 20 years in the past, and Sense and Sensibility only a year or so ago. It is interesting to see her take on how characters have grown and matured (or not). The murder mystery was satisfying enough, with the young investigators by far the most interesting characters. The writing was good, though phrasing was often belabored. If the word "sensibility" was used once with regard to Marianne Brandon, it was used a dozen times. Overall a well done pastiche that will be enjoyed by Austen fans.

I don't normally rate books this low (unless there are some truly harmful ideas presented in them), because I don't normally keep reading books that I am not enjoying. Life's too short to read books that aren't for you. However, I'm such a fan of Jane Austen, and the premise of this book was so juicy, I just really, really wanted to like this and it just fell pretty flat for me.

First and foremost, I can't help but feel that the author turned Wickham into a caricature of a villain, a stereotype of historic toxic masculinity without any true substance or depth. While I will be the first to say I would get no small amount of schadenfreude from seeing Wickham finally get what's coming to him, there's very little satisfaction in this plot. Oh sure, he gets offed, but the twists and turns that the author includes, paired with far too many couples/characters to be able to do any of them true justice, makes the plot feel disjointed and wandering.

There were a number of choices that the author of this work made that I don't think were in line or keeping with the characters that she used from Austen's writing, though this is (of course) a difference of opinion. I actually really enjoyed the new characters that were presented (Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney) and their rapport, but again they suffered from having far too many characters to be able to really develop. Those two couldn't save the way the plot lagged in the middle, sending the reader after what felt like fairly obvious false lead after false lead, and getting mired down in it's own overly busy character list.

I won't say there weren't enjoyable plots, but overall, it was a dinner-party sort of murder mystery that fell flat.

And, as a side note, I was not pleased with the author's content warning, where she basically excused her use of certain terms as being true to the time in history. None of these characters existed. None of these things have ever happened. Choosing to use derogatory or biased insults (or even slurs) is a choice the author makes; they are not beholden to being true to the "times" if they are making everything else up.

This book was just such a slog to get through. I mean, I was so excited for this book as it sounded so interesting and I have previously really enjoyed books written by Claudia Gray. However, this book ended up letting me down pretty quickly. I considered DNF'ing it a couple of times but I was just so hopeful it would get better, but it didn't really. I was so bored throughout this book. I think the main reason was the endless amount of perspectives. We really didn't need perspectives from every single character in this book. I feel like it just really slowed down the progression of this book. Every character also came with their own drama, which was just way too much going on. None of these little elements got their time to really develop and I still have a difficult time telling you which sideplot belongs to which character. It was all just way too much and it just made me really bored while reading. I did like Juliet and Jonathan though. I think this book could have been so much better if it just had the perspectives of those two. It would have allowed for those characters to be much more developed, which would have made me more attached to what is happening in this book. There's also a romance hinted at between these two and I just feel like I could have cared about it more if we had just their perspectives. So yeah, I was quite bored throughout this book but there were still some small elements to it that I quite liked.

Thank you NetGalley for the advance copy of this book. I read the P D James, Death Comes to Pemberly and thought, “Wow, almost like reading Austen.” This book will make you feel the same. The Darcys and their 20 year old son are at a house party when Mr. Wickham is murdered. Of course, the author gives us stormy weather so that all the guests must stay put. Our unlikely sleuth is Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tinley, a young woman just enjoying her first house party. The book is great. The murder interesting. The plot intriguing. Use this book for your next book club.

What a fun book. Love that the Author brought all the Jane Austen characters together to a house party that ends with the murder of Mr. Wickham. What a delicious Reed and one that I would highly recommend to anyone especially those that love and adore Ms Austen’s books.

Such a clever premise for a story, utilizing both history and characters from Jane Austen novels to make this mystery come to life. And with he murder of one of the most villainous characters in her novels!

I will start by saying that this is a review from the perspective of someone who has NOT read Jane Austen novels. Don't shun me! But I know others will ask if this is relatable or understandable without the knowledge of Austen's prior characters, and I will say that it is! Although I definitely missed some nuances of the characters, their relationships', and the sentiments I should have had when reading their names,. It did not distract from the mystery though. And Claudia Gray did an excellent job in the beginning as well as a couple of times throughout to break down the characters, their relationships' and the timeframes so it was understandable!

Locked room mysteries will always be my favorite,, and truly enjoyed the whodunit aspect of the story. Making the way through characters and breaking down who could be guilty and who is likely innocent was fun, and definitely well done. Wickham seems like such a despicable man, and it was hard to be sad he was the victim at times! It was definitely an interesting mystery that I breezed through pretty quick. However, there were definitely times that I felt the story was progressing a little slow, and that there were parts that were either too long or unnecessary for the point of the story.

For lovers of locked room mysteries and/or Jane Austen novels, this is a good choice to add to your TBR.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

I was intrigued by the idea - much of the casts from Jane Austen's novels in one, with a murder to be solved of the dastardly Mr. Wickham. While I am more familiar with some of the characters than others, I found myself wishing to get a better sense of them in this novel. Explanation is given for their backgrounds and emotional reactions, but I never felt I knew them. Perhaps it's because Mr. Wickham shows up early in the book. It would have been nice to see them relaxed and getting to know each other before jumping straight to the murder and investigation.

No spoilers on whodunit here, but I'm not quite sold on the resulting actions and reactions of the killer. One subplot the author did well in handling delicately had to do with a revelation between siblings (though the method of revelation I found slightly implausible) and the resulting soul searching it caused.

Overall a solid mystery with a well-known cast. Family friendly, though murder might be a bit much for younger readers.

I am a Jane Austen super fan and usually hate any sort of sequel or retake on her work. I was hesitant to read this one for that reason but I am so glad I did!

This one is like Jane Austen meeting Agatha Christie and I found it to be such a fun read. The mystery unfolded really well and the characters all seemed just like I remembered them.

It will probably only appeal to Austen fans, but I hope other "Janites" enjoy it as much as I did.