I have often struggled with reading YA books. Not that they aren’t incredibly creative and entertaining, but it often feels like it is about 70% of the story and I am left wanting more. However, in the last few years, I’ve been dipping my toes into YA more and it’s typically mysteries. And I’m happy to say, another YA mystery series has hooked me in! (An Austen-themed one, even.) For this week’s Book Bite, we’re chatting about In Want of a Suspect by Tirzah Price!
In Want of a Suspect, Tirzah Price
The first book in a new mystery duology starring Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy from the acclaimed Jane Austen Murder Mysteries! Lizzie and Darcy work on a case that brings up ghosts from their personal and professional pasts.
The tenacious Lizzie Bennet has earned her place at Longbourn, her father’s law firm. Her work keeps her busy, but luckily it gives her plenty of reasons to consult (and steal occasional kisses) with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, a stern but secretly soft-hearted solicitor at Pemberley.
Lizzie is hired to investigate a deadly warehouse fire and to find the mysterious woman who was spotted at the scene moments before the flames took hold. But when the case leads to the sitting room of a woman Darcy once proposed marriage to, the delicate balance between personal and professional in their relationship is threatened.
Questions of the future are cast aside when the prime suspect is murdered and Lizzie’s own life is threatened. As the body count rises, and their suspicions about what was really going on in the warehouse grow, the pressure is on for Lizzie and Darcy to uncover the truth.
Why You Should Read This….
I will admit, I had a rough stuff with Price’s Pride and Premeditation as I listened to an audiobook that was computer generated instead of a narrator (NetGalley would sometimes have these available before the audiobook has been completed). However, I didn’t write the series off at all, I just set it aside to read later. So, when it became available through my library, I figured that because this is the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth, there is no better time to try another Austen-themed mystery series.
This is a prequel to Price’s mystery series based around Elizabeth and Darcy, and I have to say, it is very fun. Many books set in the Austen-universe take a more serious tone but I love it when authors embrace the fun and lighter sides of Austen. And because Elizabeth and Darcy are younger, we get to see a different side of them! (We are all different when we are younger, we must admit that.)
I think that Price also balanced the mystery itself with the characters well; she built her own world but we were also able to dig into the actual mystery. I appreciated that we were able to get to know so many of the secondary characters, because they also made the book for me.
Is In Want of a Suspect by Tirzah Price on your to-read list?
Cheers,
The Historian
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