A old abbey turned into a home becomes the setting for a house party with a decidedly deathly outcome. "House parties" in Regency period England often lasted more than a month, with the host and hostess responsible for the food, lodging and entertainment of their guests. It was a time to escape the dirt, heat and crime of London as well as an opportunity for the young ladies and gentlemen to make proper new acquaintances while under the supervision of the hosting family. Unfortunately, for the Kingsleys, a decidedly unwelcome guest crashes their event. Mr. Wickham, although related to some of the guests is despised by everyone in attendance as he has swindled most of them out of their wealth and property and has taken liberties with both other men's wives and single young women. When Mr. Wickham meets an unfortunate end in the gallery one night, every house guest is now a suspect. Author Gray lays out motives for every one of her guests as well as alibis, leaving the reader in suspense until the end when the real murderer and motive is revealed.
A bit tedious in its reading, "The Murder of Mr. Wickham" is written true to the style of the period, which may or may not appeal to every reader.

Gray has maneuvered many of the Jane Austen characters from different books into one story. They are at a house party at Emma's house when Mr. Wickham shows up, He continues to be the cad he was in Pride and Prejudice. When he is killed there are an abundance of suspects. The lives of the characters after the end of the books are not always so happy ever after. The author has attempted to write in the manner of Austen and it is somewhat successful. I'm a huge Jane Austen fan so enjoy books that are written in homage to her.

Delightful cozy mystery featuring characters from Jane Austen’s works.

The Knightleys (Emma), who have been married 16 years, throw a houseparty at Donwell Abbey. The guests included the Darcys (Pride and Prejudice) and their 20-year-old son Jonathan, Captain and Anne Wentworth (Persuasion), Edmund and Fanny Bertram (Mansfield Park), and the newlywed Colonel and Marianne Brandon (Sense and Sensibility). Also invited is Juliet Tilney, the 17-year-old daughter of Catherine and Henry Tilney (Northanger Abbey), without her parents.

Not invited is Mr. Wickham, the cad who ran off with Elizabeth Darcy’s sister Lydia, but he shows up unexpectedly. He has continued his mercenary schemes and caused harm to many people, including some of the houseguests. When he is found murdered in the middle of the night, the local magistrate, Frank Churchill (Emma), is called in to investigate. But Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney, concerned that a servant will be falsely accused, decide to do some snooping amongst their fellow guests.

Jonathan and Juliet are well-matched as a sleuthing duo and, naturally, as potential romantic partners, though they are both wary of the notion. Jonathan appears to be on the spectrum, and he attempts to follow society’s strictures even when he finds them puzzling. Juliet has an independent spirit and is open to interesting experiences. After some initial misunderstandings, she accepts Jonathan as he is.

I am merely a casual Austen fan, but I felt her original characters were authentically represented. I do think a Cast of Characters would be helpful to remind readers of the relationships and source material. (There was not one in the ARC I read.) I’m glad that there wasn’t a cop out at the end in terms of whodunnit.

Thoroughly enjoyable both as a cozy, closed circle mystery and an Austen homage.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.

This was the Jane Austen mystery story I never knew I wanted. It was wonderful! A delight for those who love all Austen books. A great country manor house mystery for those who love cozy mysteries. And to make it even better, I loved how Ms. Gray developed the Austen couples. While we see the characters in their youth before marriage in Austen's novels, Ms. Gray does a wonderful job of keeping their original character traits but maturing them, making them complicated. Years of marriage and children will do that!

This is a fun take on the beloved main characters of Jane Austen's world. The villainous George Wickham arrives to to Emma and Mr. Knightley's house party at Donwell Abbey as the ultimate uninvited guest, only to be discovered, quite dead, in the gallery on a dark and stormy night. The Knightley's houseguests include Mr and Mrs Darcy and their grown son, Jonathan as well as Captain and Mrs Wentworth, Colonel and Mrs Brandon, The Reverend and Mrs Bertram, and 17 year old Juliet Tilney. Motive and opportunity abound in this twisty murder mystery, as all concerned (except young Mr Darcy and Miss Tilney) have good reason to want Wickham dead!

The Murder of Mr. Wickham is for any Jane Austen fan who wants to revisit their favorite characters, and see the vile Mr. Wickham finally get what he deserved.

The story takes place at a party weekend at Emma and George Knightly's estate. Of course, Wickham shows up invited and wow, hasn't he made an enemy of practically everyone at the party.
Years after their HEA, we see Austen's most famous couples and how they've faired after the years. Some liberties were taken but Gray does an overall wonderful job of tone and texture filling the story with the spirit of the original characters, including two new additions which will keep any Austen fan interested. (Jonathan and Juliet).

I really particularly enjoyed the dynamic between Col. Brandon and Maryanne, who are newlyweds and still feeling their ways around each other. His quiet devotion and her passion are both incredibly romantic and very authentic to their characters and the writer does an excellent job of showing how these two overlap but also leave gaps of uncertainty in their new union. But we also have Emma, my favorite actually, who even though time has passed, still seems a little bit like her much younger self. While I do think Emma might hold on to some of her less favorable qualities, I thought she was a little too much like her older self. Capt. Wentworth also seemed a little bit too angry and droll for my taste (although given their current circumstance who could blame them.) And so all of the characters, while having grown and matured, still held onto the spirit of their character. I admit though, most of them were unhappy or worried about one thing or another, which seemed kinda like too much angst.
I will say that Wickham is as foul and terrible as ever, each couple having had a problem with him (to no one's surprise) and Gray does a superb job of writing a villain who stole the scene every time he was on the page.

That said, the murder is, let's say, satisfying. Can I say that? Is that too weird?

Wickham is found dead and of course everyone at the party is a suspect. Austen plus Clue is my kind of book and it does a wonderful job of creating tension and intrigue with each of the characters. That said, and I mean this in the best possible way, I think if you haven't read Austen's books, then the most charming parts of the book would be lost on you. I enjoyed going back to my favorite characters, even if they were grumpy or depressed versions of themselves. And I liked the setting. But I felt like the murder didn't hold up on its own and because there were so many characters, the book went back and forth so many times, it didn't have a continued flow of story.

Any Austen fan should read this book. They'll enjoy revisiting their favorite characters and see what happened after Austen left them at I Do.

I was already a Claudia Gray fan from reading her Star Wars books, but I was so excited when I learned about this book because I'm also a Jane Austen fan. Claudia Gray & Jane Austen seemed like a winning combination to me, and I was not disappointed. Throughout the whole book I was so worried about which of my beloved characters would turn out to be a murderer and how Claudia was going to make it be in a way that I could accept it. Again, I was absolutely not disappointed. I really hope this turns out to be either a series, or have at least one more book because I'd like to read further adventures of Juliet and Jonathan! Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for access to the ARC.

“The Murder of Mr. Wickham” is a hard book to review and I really wish I could give it a higher rating because there were aspects of it that I loved. The beginning of the book is amazing and it is immediately evident that Lady Gray really gets these characters. There are plenty of moments throughout the book where a character will do/say/think something and it will feel like what that Austen character would do in that moment. I really wished that everything could be nice and that we could all enjoy the nice house party where our beloved characters all interacted. Alas, that was not to be because of the villainous Mr. Wickham.

There are lots of twists and turns and connections that I loved, but ultimately I did not care who killed Wickham. I was not invested in the investigation and I wasn’t invested in the investigators: Juliet Tilney and Jonathan Darcy. I really just wanted a happy moment with characters that I loved to appear on the page! But that wasn’t possible because of plot. And the longer tensions raised amongst the characters, the less like the characters they seemed, but it’s fair to say we’ve never seen Austen’s characters in this type of situation and so it’s natural that they wouldn’t seem themselves. That being said, it was interesting to see each couple work through the problems that arose. Speaking of couples... I wouldn't recommend this to die-hard Fanny/Edmund shippers as they're not shown in a good light.

I normally avoid sequels like this because I worry that it will ruin my view of the characters, but in this case I mostly liked Gray’s version of the characters and it was the mystery I found to be lacking. If you’re a Janeite I do think “The Murder of Mr. Wickham” is worth reading because there are definitely some gems in this book for fans of Miss Jane Austen.

*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

George and Emma Knightley are hosting a house party at Donwell Abbey and have barely welcomed their guests when the insufferable Mr. Wickham crashes the party. The hosts and most of their guests have good reason to despise Wickham, so there is no shortage of suspects after he is murdered. The Darcys’ son Jonathan and Miss Juliet Tilney, the youngest guests, feel that the local magistrate is too quick to assume that the murderer must have been an intruder or a servant, and they secretly begin their own investigation to see that justice is done.

Jane Austen enthusiasts and fans of P.D. James’ <i>Death Comes to Pemberly</i> will find much to love in Claudia Gray’s homage to these earlier works. Gray does James one better — or actually five better — by bring together the main couples from five Austen novels rather than one, and adding the daughter of the main couple from a sixth (<i >Northanger Abbey</i>) as well. Lengthy house parties were common among the upper class of Austen’s time and thus provides a plausible means of bringing the disparate characters together. Interestingly, the young Mr. Darcy, Jonathan, is described as “peculiar,” displaying characteristics that most readers will recognize as attributes of Asberger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism, which was unidentified in that time. The tone and style ring true to Austen’s own, and readers will likely delight in the further adventures of the characters they came to love in <i>Emma</i>, <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, <i>Sense and Sensibility</i>, <i>Mansfield Park</i>, and <i>Persuasion</i>.

I received an advance readers copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I adored this novel!
As a casual Austen fan, reading this book encouraged me to research certain characters as a way to refamiliarize myself. This was not a task at all, more a delight. Perhaps Grey has even inspired a rereading of some of her well know works.

The Murder of Mr. Wickham is a wonderful who-dun it set in the early Nineteenth Century. Join a group of well know Austen characters as they accept invitations to the ill fated house party, hosted by Mr. and Mrs. George Knightly. An uninvited guest disrupts the happy festivities and drives one of societies' upstanding guests to commit the unthinkable.
A twisty plot with (mostly) lovable characters.
A definite recommendation!

Big thanks to NetGallery for allowing me to read and review the ARC.

This book wasn't for me. It had way too many characters in it. If you are familiar with Austen's work, you might enjoy seeing all your favorites in one place. For me, it made it hard to connect with any particular characters because there were so many coming in and out of each scene. I couldn't figure out who to focus on. There wasn't much depth in the two young people that were supposed to be the leads, but if you are looking for a cozy mystery with a lot of Austen's characters featured, then you might like this one.

This was a delightful treat for a cold winter. Jane Austen fans will love reuniting with some of their most beloved characters. Though still a gem, it didn't have as much emotional depth and complexity that we so loved from Austen's works. Recommend on a cold, rainy weekend. #themurderofmrwickham #claudiagray #netgalley #goodreads

What a delightful little gem - all Jane Austen’s heroines and their husbands together under one roof, meeting at a house party with Emma Knightly as the perfect hostess. Claudia Gray’s descriptions and perceived development of the different couples were gentle and non offensive. To me that part was more interesting than the closed door whodunnit part of the story.
And I was delighted to see that somebody else feel about the Bertrams as I do.
Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read and review this ARC.

It's 1820, and Emma & George Knightley are throwing a house party for an eclectic mix of Regency society that just happens to include some of Jane Austen's most famous characters. On the guest list are Elizabeth & Fitzwilliam Darcy and their son Jonathan, Anne & Frederick Wentworth, Fanny & Edmund Bertram, Marianne & Colonel Brandon, and Catherine & Henry Tilney's daughter, Juliet. The gathering is barely underway before the dastardly George Wickham crashes the party, revealing secret, sordid ties to more than just the Darcys. By the time Wickham turns up dead soon after, none of our beloved characters are above suspicion. Amidst the turmoil, Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney form a next-generation alliance determined to uncover the truth.

3.75/5: The Murder of Mr. Wickham is a super fun fan-service mystery. I enjoyed the intricate effort behind bringing a bunch of Austen characters together -- even without suspending my disbelief, the story still felt believable. It was also DELIGHTFUL to read about Wickham getting his comeuppance! I think big Austenites will love this, and it has enough background information that casual Austen fans and those who are familiar with some or even none of her stories would still follow along and find something to like.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and by #NetGalley. Opinions expressed are completely my own.


I truly enjoyed this one. A cozy mystery with a vintage twist is just what I need.