Hi friends! I’m so happy to welcome back author Elizabeth Gilliland to Austenesque Reviews today! You may remember that a few months back I reviewed her book titled, What Happened on Box Hill, and it was the first cozy mystery in The Austen University series. Well it looks like some mayhem and mysteries are continuing for our friends as the next book in the series just came out today! 🫢

Elizabeth is here to celebrate the release of her newest installment of The Austen University series – The Portraits at Pemberley and share an excerpt! Happy release day, Elizabeth! 🎉

~ Book Description ~

After George Wickham is found tied up, naked, on the Austen University Campus Square, President de Bourgh gives student journalist Lizzy Bennet an ultimatum: Find out who committed the crime, or be expelled from the school. Lizzy must team up with some old friends (like the Austen Murder Club) and some new (like…Karoline Bingley?) to get to the bottom of the truth.

Complicating matters is the fact that the prime suspect is Fo-Hian Darcy. Darcy and Lizzy have a messy history, but even so, Lizzy just can’t accept that Darcy committed the crime. An anonymous whistleblower tips off Lizzy about a secret website called the Portraits of Pemberley that may help her get to the bottom of the mystery–but discovering the truth about who’s involved may very well challenge everything that Lizzy believes.

The Portraits of Pemberley is Book 2 of the Austen University Mysteries series but can be read as a standalone novel. It combines plot points of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice with Sense and Sensibility (and characters from all of Austen’s novels) in a modern-university setting, with mysteries.

Before Marianne could get herself wound up for a second round, they were interrupted by a loud, distinct rat-a-tat knock on the front door, accompanied by a, “Yoohoo!” The three girls fell silent, exchanging ominous glances. Mrs. Jennings.

Instinctively, Lizzy looked to the curtains, cursing inwardly when she saw they were open. There was no use pretending no one was home. The lights were on, and the telltale glow of the television screen lit up the bay window. Damn, damn, and triple damn.

The woman in question was their Panhellenic sponsor, Mrs. Dolly Jennings. She was Nora’s and Marianne’s second cousin, as well as the Deltas’ sponsor and house mother; one of the richest women in Highbury, Mrs. Jennings was a major donor to the university and had championed their small sorority. She was probably the only reason they’d been able to open a chapter, and was probably the only reason it hadn’t been shut down after the debacle of Isabella’s death, Caty Morland’s subsequent dinner party, and all the fuss it had caused at the university. Mrs. Jennings was an extraordinarily generous, friendly woman.

She was also impossible to get rid of once she managed to get into the house.

Mrs. Jennings was a talker. She could talk about any subject, regardless of whether anyone else was actually listening or participating in the conversation, and the thing she most liked to talk about was gossip, of which there was never a short supply in the small college town. Lizzy knew more dirt about neighbors she’d never actually met than she ever cared to, and she had no doubt that Mrs. Jennings talked about the three of them just as freely to whoever else she could manage to get within earshot. A brief visit from Mrs. Jennings was never brief. One time she stopped by to “drop off a cheesecake” mid-afternoon and stayed so long talking that at last all three girls had just gone to bed and left her alone in the kitchen, laughing boisterously at her own joke.

Nora looked at her watch, sighing. “I was going to wake up early to study…”

“Yoohoo!” Mrs. Jennings called again. “Just a quick pop-by, girls! I come bearing gifts!”

What else could they do but let her in? At least with Mrs. Jennings the promise of gifts was not an idle one. Sometimes she came bearing food, other times iPads. Okay, that had been one time, but still.

“Brace yourselves,” Lizzy whispered, shooting back one last mournful look to her roommates before plastering on a smile as she threw open the door. “Mrs. Jennings! We weren’t expecting you.”

The woman in question bustled past Lizzy, carrying a tray full of cupcakes (yay!) and settling herself down at the dining room table (boo). “Lord, I’m sweating like a sinner in church. What right does it have to be so warm in October?” Uninvited, she propped her croc-covered feet up on the chair next to her, fanning herself heavily with a used paper plate she’d picked up from the table. “Lucy, honey, come on in here and shut the door, before you let out all the AC.”

Before Lizzy had time to even fully wonder who ‘Lucy’ was, a familiar-looking girl entered the room. She had long, dyed blonde hair and wore thick eyelash extensions as well as a full face of makeup, and her outfit looked like it could almost pass for designer. Lizzy couldn’t quite place her, but knew she had definitely seen her somewhere. Maybe they’d had a lecture together, or Lucy had been a pledge the same year as her?

Answering the unasked question, Mrs. Jennings gestured to Lucy– proudly, as if she had had something to do with making her. “Girls, I want you to meet Lucy Steele. Lucy is a distant cousin of mine. Actually, she’s a distant cousin of my son-in-law’s, so no blood relation to the two of you, Nora and Marianne, but practically family nonetheless.”

Mrs. Jennings’s recently acquired son-in-law, Jeb Middleton, had made a brief appearance last summer at a get-together that Mrs. Jennings hosted at her waterfront mansion and insisted that the girls all attend. Jeb was an extreme hunter, having made his fortune off marketing a very particular kind of hunting experience that Lizzy didn’t fully understand (Jeb was missing a few teeth and had a thick Mississippi accent) but somehow involved helicopters and bazookas. Apparently, it was very lucrative. Between that and his alligator vest (sans shirt underneath), Jeb had given Mrs. Jennings a run for her money in the most-eccentric-member-of-the-family department, which was saying something.

Lucy didn’t look like she came from the same colorful background, so she was probably about as distant to Jeb as Marianne and Nora were to Mrs. Jennings. As if sensing their curiosity, she gave a bashful little smile–though her cat-like eyes peered up at them from under her thick false lashes, appraising.

“You’ve probably seen her around town,” Mrs. Jennings continued. “She was part of the Omegas, and she works at that cute little coffee shop, the Croissant.”

“The Crescent,” Lucy corrected her, still smiling that bashful little smile.

It clicked immediately for Lizzy–that was where she had seen her. Lucy was a waitress at the cafe, though she didn’t recall her having the hair extensions then, and she had never looked quite so made up. Maybe the wait staff had a strict dress code they had to follow. “That’s right. I’ve seen you there before.” Lizzy offered her friendliest smile, knowing firsthand how uncomfortable it was to have Mrs. Jennings parade her around like her latest bag. “It must be fun working there. Do they let you have free pastries?”

Lucy’s smile turned prim. “I try to avoid carbs as much as possible.” She gave Lizzy a quick, assessing little look, as if to say You clearly don’t.

O-kay. Lizzy put on her blandest smile, the one she’d grown accustomed to wearing around sorority girls. No more sticking her neck out to try to make her feel comfortable anymore.

“Well, girls, we’re simply in a flummox because Lucy’s had a terrible falling out with the Omegas, and of course, I thought if anyone could understand, it would be my Delta girls.”

Marianne had never made any secret of detesting Mrs. Jennings, but it just wasn’t in her personality to abstain from the whiff of drama. “What happened?” she asked reluctantly, folding her arms over her chest.

Lucy took in a bracing breath. “I don’t want to say anything negative against my Omega sisters. I’m sure there could have been some sort of misunderstanding.” She didn’t sound sure of this, at all. “But I couldn’t ignore my growing suspicion that some of the girls might be…” she lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper, “racist.”

Lizzy exchanged a surprised glance with Nora, who asked, “What do you mean?”

Lucy looked up eagerly at the sound of Nora’s question, meeting her gaze almost–hungrily?–before dropping it demurely to the ground again. “I really shouldn’t say. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. But I also knew I couldn’t be part of it anymore.”

“Of course you couldn’t.” Marianne was properly red up now. If there was anything that got her more inflamed than a good abuse of power, it was a racial injustice. “Any association with a system that oppresses makes us complicit to that oppression.”

Mrs. Jennings didn’t seem to entirely understand what that meant, but she gathered that the girls were receptive to Lucy’s plight. “That’s for damn tootin’. Obviously Lucy’s had to step away from the Omegas for the time being, which means she’s homeless and sisterless. Now, I’d love to take her in, but we’re redoing the west wing, and anyway I thought it would be better for young Lucy to be around some girls her own age…?”

Another glance exchanged between Lizzy and Nora. Not much could really be said in protest, since Mrs. Jennings was not only their benefactor, but their landlady. At least Lucy’s social justice plight would get Marianne on her side, which would be less of a headache for everyone involved.

 

Lizzy only had to wonder why Lucy would agree to go along with such a plan. She did not look like someone who’d want to willingly spend her time with the ‘loser’ Deltas, and she also struck Lizzy as someone who could have easily persuaded Mrs. Jennings to let her stay in her mansion and think it was her idea, too. But for whatever reason, Lucy Steele had agreed to bunk up with them.

Lizzy put on her most pleasant smile. “Welcome, roomie.” Not quite willing to let go of the carbs dig previously, she added sweetly, “Tomorrow’s pancake day, so I hope you brought your own syrup!”

***