Description

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 manuscriptabout a baronets daughter nursing a broken heart for a daring naval captaincannot 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 Emma and treat herself to a period of rest and reflection at the spa in the company of her sister Cassandra 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 ownsome of them deadly But perhaps with Janes 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 Barrons critically acclaimed series brings a forgotten moment of Regency history to life