Well this was definitely an unusual read!

We follow Georgiana Darcy, Mr Darcy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice‘s younger sister, as she discovers a device that sends her two hundred years into the future, to 1995. When she gets there, she discovers a dead body. Helpless to the unintelligible whims of the pager, she skips between Pemberton, where current events are distressing her, to Saltram in Plymouth, where she escapes her own situation and attempts to unravel the events there with the support of a beguiling Irish security man called Quinn.

I’ve attempted other Pride and Prejudice spin-offs before and find them very hit or miss, the thing I struggle with most is the language they try to replicate. A Crime Through Time avoids falling too far into this trap as we spend a lot of time in 1995.

The aspects I struggled with were the chapter lengths, and some of Georgiana’s reactions to Plymouth of the 90s… Short snappy chapters go hand in hand with crime fiction, giving that feel of page-turning action, of events happening at pace. But these chapters are very short, and often happen mid conversation, to then pick up the conversation again in the next chapter. It didn’t always make sense as to why we needed a chapter break at that time, and rather than having the usual page-turning affect, it caused the opposite – it was too easy to put the book down and it took me a while to sustain the urge to pick it back up again. As such, it took me a while to really feel like I was getting into the story as it just felt disjointed.

With regards to the second aspect, it sometimes felt like the author was trying too hard to prove they’d done their research, with Georgiana focusing a great deal on the plants around her, and wondering at people’s lack of historical understanding… It didn’t always feel well aligned with what was happening in the story at that point, which is why I think it came across more forced than natural, or as representation of Georgiana’s interests and education.

It’s a shame I found these aspects so distracting from what was otherwise quite a unique and fun story. It’s a great mash of series like Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next books, where characters from Classical literature come to life, and Jodie Taylor’s St Mary’s books, where characters travel through time to save artefacts. There are also, of course, plenty of nods to other Jane Austen works for fans to pick out.

I wouldn’t pick this up expecting a meaty crime to solve; it takes something of a backseat to Georgiana’s adventure and romance. There are some things that are resolved, but there are plenty of wider questions that unfortunately aren’t, and I can only hope there’ll be a sequel to address those. Despite only giving it three stars, it is still a series I’d like to come back to and see how it progresses!

A Crime Through Time is available now – you can order your copy on Bookshop.org