Jane and the Stillroom Maid by Stephanie Barron

Although I love the entire Austen Mysteries series so far, some of the individual books can drag. Barron's version of Austen is always a great, funny, observant, courageous detective, so she and her supporting cast and all of the historical details that Barron includes are enough to keep me interested. But some of the books have had stretches in which I was eager to get back to the investigation. Stillroom Maid doesn't have that problem and so it's one of my favorites. 

The plot really moves. When the body of the eponymous woman is found among the hills of Northern England, Austen's investigation into her death basically takes place over a weekend and she's active the whole time. The story also keeps interesting by switching between three great settings: the craggy wilderness, a quaint village full of suspects, and an elaborate estate with a lavish mansion of even more potential killers. My mind's eye was quite happy.

And then there's the fact that the maid herself was possibly a witch. Just my cup of tea.

Love & Friendship (2016)

I watched Love & Friendship when it was first released just because I love Kate Beckinsale and I love Jane Austen movies. I hadn't yet read Lady Susan, the unpublished novel it's based on, so my first opinion was that Love & Friendship was a minor entry in the Austen movie collection. I thought it was funny and charming, but not on the same level as my go-to Austen films: Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility, the 1995 Pride and Prejudice mini-series, and the Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow (Autumn de Wilde's version didn't exist yet, but it's very much one of my favorites today).

I liked Love & Friendship even more after reading Lady Susan. Since the novella tells the story through letters between the various characters - and pulls a lot of the humor from the differences between those letters - the film has to be funny in a different way. And impressively: it is.

I ding it a little for robbing Lady Susan of some comeuppance that she has coming to her. In the book, she settles for marrying herself to a rich idiot whom she'd planned on attaching to her daughter. It's clearly a Plan B or C outcome for her. But the film makes it seem like she's getting exactly what she wants. And as much as I enjoy her scheming, I want to see her thwarted more than she is.