The Haunting of a Brontë
The Haunting of a Brontë is the second in the Miss Darcy Investigates series. Although Blackwell provides a summary of A Crime Through Time in the opening chapter of this novel, it helps to have read the first book to make sense of the unusual premise. Georgiana Darcy (from Pride and Prejudice) has found a Motorola pager which transports her through time to solve crimes/mysteries. This story opens in 1799, with Georgiana Darcy etching a message to her lover, Quinn, who is in 1995, on the wall of a stone amphitheatre on an estate in Devon. While she is doing this, a mysterious stranger, William Fanshawe, appears. He gives her a Maglite torch and tells her ‘we must go where we are needed.’ Later, Georgiana is transported to Thorp Green Hall in Yorkshire, 1845, where she overhears Branwell and Anne Brontë arguing about Branwell’s belief that he is being haunted. Georgiana poses as the new companion to the family’s oldest daughter and sets about trying to solve various mysteries at Thorp Green Hall.
Blackwell develops the backstory and mechanics of time-travel more fully in this book (although how a pager could still work after eight months without a change of batteries is conveniently ignored). Unfortunately, Georgiana is not a natural detective, and the plot relies heavily on her eavesdropping in order to gain information, as well as being nocturnal (with the lack of sleep having no adverse effects upon her). There are various subplots (not all of which are resolved) and revelations, along with cultural references to the 1990s, the works of Jane Austen and the lives of the Brontës.
