What Happened on Box Hill: Austen University Mysteries 
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – Louisianna
Bayou Wolf Press (February 1, 2022)
240 Pages

Synopsis

What would happen if you combined all of Jane Austen’s characters into one modern-day novel?

Murder, of course.

When Caty Morland’s roommate, Isabella, falls to her death on Initiation night, Austen University is quick to cover up the scandal and call it a tragic accident. But avid true-crime lover Caty remains convinced that Isabella didn’t fall; she was murdered. With the help of Pi Kappa Sigma President Emma Woodhouse, Caty organizes a dinner party with the most likely suspects, including familiar faces such as Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet, Knightley, and Marianne Dashwood. The theme of the night is murder, and Caty has three courses to find out what happened to Isabella–and to try to keep the killer from striking again.

Amazon

Review

This was such a fascinating twist on a cozy. While set in the present, the feel and Caty’s approach to solving the mystery felt very much like Agatha Christie or Hercules Poirot.

This book appealed to me on several levels. I loved the Greek organization aspect (sororities and fraternities) because I was one in college and while my experience was very different than what happens at Austen College, I could relate to those involved with the organizations and the different personalities that you might find in any organization, greek or not. I loved that Caty was into true crime and loved listening to podcasts and was immersed in that whole world. While that isn’t my jam, I know many people that love these podcasts, books, and shows. I think it might have made Caty a little more perceptive in her sleuthing. Plus, she met a guy that was into a specific podcast too.

I had to chuckle at first when Caty brings everyone together over dinner and tells them that one of them is a murderer. Despite her passion for true crime, I’m not sure she should have invited a potential murderer to a dinner party. But I think that is what makes this book charming, the innocence of Caty despite her best intentions.

The story does flip back and forth in time which gives us insight into events leading up to Isabella’s murder and who might have had cause to kill her. I actually liked that aspect because it gives us snippets for us to suss out the murderer ourselves.

Since I don’t remember much of Jane Austen, I couldn’t compare the characters of the two books. However, I don’t think that is necessary to enjoy this new cozy series and might even make it better if you aren’t trying to compare it to another book.

I think this will be a fun new series to watch and we give it 4 paws up.

Excerpt

Before her body had even begun to decompose, Isabella Thorpe had been almost universally branded by the press, the public, and her peers as a slut. Had young Isabella lived to see her newfound fame, she would have been tickled pink, instead of the grayish-bluish tint of her current color palette. She might have been delighted by the sight of her photographs plastered across the media, even if her carefully applied makeup and the outfit she’d spent hours choosing proved to be ultimately less than durable. Seeing her name pop up on all multiple threads and comments—some sympathetic, but others making her the punchline of a slew of wincingly morbid jokes—might have made her giggle, because the internet was forever and she was, like, totally famous now.

Even the word “slut” itself might not have given her much pause, because wasn’t she always yelling that at her sorority sisters as they laughed and danced and put on a show? It didn’t mean what it used to. It was a term of endearment now, empowerment.

But not, as it turned out, when it was being whispered behind her back—or, to be more accurate, over her dead body. Not when major news outlets were discussing, in detail, the number of people she’d hooked up with during her brief time as a freshman at Austen University; and boys were coming out of the woodwork to testify she’d been the aggressive one, pursuing them; and the same girls who’d laughingly grinded with her only weeks before were giving “special interviews” about how out of control she’d been. Anything for those fifteen minutes of fame.

It all started out innocently enough, this frenzied piranha-feeding of Isabella’s reputation. Before the school issued a formal warning to the students about commenting to the press, Isabella’s roommate, Catherine Morland, was ambushed as she left the sorority house. Petite, wide-eyed Caty looked terrified in the video clip that eventually went viral, and the wolves circled in on her, expecting her to be easy prey. Indeed, when asked about her relationship to Isabella, Caty was barely able to stammer out she was her “best friend” and that “Bella” had been girlfriend to her brother James. (Both claims were later torn to shreds in online forums, in which people speculated why a girl like Isabella who had a “boyfriend” also had an active Tinder profile, and why Caty would claim to be her best friend when she appeared in hardly any of her Instagram pictures.)

But the moment that pushed the video into viral fame was when one of the reporters asked Caty if she had any idea what happened to Isabella. Suddenly small, trembling Caty went still, looking straight into the camera. “Of course I do. She was murdered.”

That was when the president of Pi Kappa Sigma, Emma Woodhouse—tall, blonde, and with a formidable Southern-belle glare—swooped in to wrap a protective arm around Caty. “No more comment, y’all,” she insisted before guiding the younger girl to the safety of her waiting Mercedes. Online, however, no one could protect Caty or Isabella from the ensuing media circus.

Perhaps in the end, even Isabella would have shied away from this kind of attention—regardless that her name briefly became the top “Isabella” in search engines in North America and trended in hashtags, too. The kind of fame she daydreamed about in her lifetime came through merit or achievement. Miss Louisiana, for example, or winner of a televised singing competition, or top Pharma rep in the Southeast U.S. Division.

This kind of fame? It was not earned—it was taken, and turned against you. Voyeurs, gobbling up every gory, illicit detail, just so they could teeter to the edge of danger, then pull back at the last minute. All the while reassuring themselves they were okay, this could never happen to them.

Isabella could have told them differently, of course. This couldn’t have happened to her, either, until it did.

About the Author

Elizabeth Gilliland teaches English at the university level, putting as much Austen into her syllabi as she can get away with. In 2018, she completed her Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, where she wrote her dissertation on Jane Austen adaptations and fever-dreamed this series in a caffeine-induced haze. She is a proud member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, and excerpts of the Austen University series have won awards through JASNA and Jane Austen & Co/The Jane Austen Summer Program. She lives in Alabama with her husband and son.

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