This is part of the blog tour for Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron.

We started reading Stephanie Barron’s Jane Austen Mysteries series around the time the fifth book, Jane and the Stillroom Maid, came out in 2000, though being a completist naturally we read the first four first, in order. It made perfect sense to us then, and does now, that Jane Austen would be a dab hand at solving mysteries, and we were happy to suspend disbelief to allow that the “Editor” of the mysteries had discovered a cache of Jane’s forgotten journals in a British estate house describing her doing so. It could happen! And we’ve continued enjoying the series ever since.

The first time we met Ms. Barron in person was at the 2008 JASNA AGM in Chicago, where the Editrix was presenting a poster session about this very blog, and the authoress unwarily wandered by at a quiet moment so we were able to fangirl all over her. (Actually we rather shyly muttered something about being “a really big fan” a la Kathy Bates in Misery and she was quite gracious.) So we are delighted to be participating in the blog tour for the latest Jane Austen Mystery, Jane and the Year Without a Summer, fourteenth in the series, and the opportunity to pester Ms. Barron, Lady Catherine-like, with our impertinent questions.

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