My review (from 2011)

It did take me a few chapters to get my head around this story. Unlike Death Comes to Pemberley – which takes place after the events chronicled in Pride and Prejudice, this novel is a complete re-working of Mansfield Park – with murder added to the mix. Thus Fanny Price – the eventual victim, is a spoilt nasty heiress – and Mary Crawford (who many prefer to Fanny anyway) the absolute heroine of the book. Once I got my head around this – I thoroughly enjoyed the book. (I am not, I find, very good at letting go of the established stories and characters of a book. I do sort of believe that – like in Jasper Fforde’s ‘An Eyre Affair’ – the characters and events of famous works are continually being played out in some alternative universe).

However I quickly got over that, due in part to the superb writing and fabulous characterisation. Written in a style, totally authentic to the period, clever recreation of characters from the original Mansfield Park with a twist, makes for a great read. To be honest Mansfield Park was probably my least favourite Jane Austen novel, and I really enjoyed the ingenious way Lynn Shepherd has played with these characters. Now however I am rather curious to re-read the original novel, maybe I will one of these days.
I felt quite clever when I managed to guess – it was pure guess though – “whodunit” – that’s twice I’ve done that recently and usually I’m clueless with whodunits.
Overall a thoroughly enjoyable, well written page turner, that haters of Jane Austen’s Fanny Price will love.

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CharlieFerrett
earthcaroleanne

Sent to CharlieFerret :)

Just about to sit down to this book. It has been sent to me as part of the Book Ray!! I enjoyed Death comes to Pemberley so looking forward to a reworking of Mansfield Park.

Just waiting for address to continue book ray. Enjoyed this book and the characterisations. I won't give too much away though!

Arrived today. I have a bookray backlog but fortunately I'm last for this.

Sorry, I never realised this was the first in the Charles Maddox series with Tom-All-Alone being the second. If I had noticed I would have read this first but I was concentrating on reading the bookrays in the order I had received them. However, it didn’t really matter. Although Charles Maddox appears in both books, they are completely stand-a-lone.
I have never read Mansfield Park but I recognise some of the characters from TV adaptations. That said, I think you might not enjoy this if you are a Jane Austen fan as the characters appear to have been changed quite a lot. And as a crime novel, it starts off quite slow. The first murder doesn’t happen until we are more than half way through the book and going by some reviews on Amazon, people gave up before then. As a detective novel, I’m not sure it works either as Mary Crawford seems to be the one that solves the murder, not the detective, Charles Maddox who isn’t in the story that much. On top of all that, I actually guessed the murderer which doesn’t happen very often. Also, there were far too many fainting, delicate ladies for my liking and people falling in love at a glance. Did that really happen?
However, I did enjoy the tongue-in-cheek references such as how much easier it would be to solve a murder if only you could identify whose blood was on discarded clothing or if you could tell who had held the murder weapon. There is also an amusing aside about Heath Row, "a small village west of London ... damp, low-lying and disposed to fog ... it was unlikely much would ever be made of it". Most amusing.

Sending a box of Birmingham Unconvention authors

Ah this one precedes the book I just journalled reception of... these two arrived in a sort of bookbox - thanks so much!

Well, I obviously should have paid more attention to the title and re-read Mansfield Park before starting this... Instead I plunged right in, vaguely aware that the names all seemed familiar, but not bothering to think more about it. Now that I am remembering more about Austen's original, I am half tempted to read this again with that perspective. There are a number of twists and turns, and this makes for an entertaining read,with quite a different slant from the original (even taking away the whole murder aspect).