Jane and the Year Without a Summer

<b>If you have a Jane Austen-would-have-been-my-best-friend complex look no further . . . [Barron] has painstakingly sifted through the famed author's letters and writings as well as extensive biographical information to create a finely detailed portrait of Austen's life&#151;with a dash of fictional murder . . . Some of the most enjoyable well-written fanfic ever created.<i>&#151;O Magazine</i></b><br><b>&#160;</b><br>May 1816: Jane Austen is feeling unwell with an uneasy stomach constant fatigue rashes fevers and aches. She attributes her poor condition to the stress of family burdens which even the drafting of her latest manuscript&#151;about a baronet's daughter nursing a broken heart for a daring naval captain&#151;cannot alleviate. Her apothecary recommends a trial of the curative waters at Cheltenham Spa in Gloucestershire. Jane decides to use some of the profits earned from her last novel&#160;<i>Emma</i> and treat herself to a period of rest and reflection at the spa in the company of her sister Cassandra.<br>&#160;<br>Cheltenham Spa hardly turns out to be the relaxing sojourn Jane and Cassandra envisaged however. It is immediately obvious that other boarders at the guest house where the Misses Austen are staying have come to Cheltenham with stresses of their own&#151;some of them deadly. But perhaps with Jane&#146;s interference a terrible crime might be prevented. Set during the Year without a Summer when the eruption of Mount Tambora in the South Pacific caused a volcanic winter that shrouded the entire planet for sixteen months this fourteenth installment in Stephanie Barron&#146;s critically acclaimed series brings a forgotten moment of Regency history to life.