A MATTER OF MURDER, by Tirzah Price, Storytide, Nov. 11, 2025, Hardcover, $19.99 (young adult)
Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy join forces to solve a Bingley family curse in A Matter of Murder, a YA mystery by Tirzah Price.
A Bingley family curse looms over Lizzie’s sister and Darcy’s best friend—but are the dark forces at work supernatural or human?
Lizzie Bennet’s beloved sister Jane has just married Darcy’s best friend, Bingley, and the Bennet family and Darcy are paying the newlyweds a visit at Bingley’s family home, Netherfield Park. It doesn’t take long for their country retreat to turn into an investigation, though, when a long-dead body is discovered stuffed up the parlor chimney.
The locals are convinced that Netherfield is cursed, but Lizzie and Darcy know better than to believe in such nonsense and are determined to uncover the truth about what happened to the mysterious man in the chimney. But as they dig deeper into the history of Netherfield Park, they find that danger is waiting for them around every corner. Soon enough, they’re forced to consider if the curse might have some merit to it, or if there’s something—or someone—far more sinister behind their near brushes with death. . . . —Synopsis provided by Storytide
Tirzah Price is the author of the Jane Austen Mysteries, a YA series of standalone mystery retellings of Jane Austen’s beloved classics, by way of Agatha Christie. They can be read in any order, although the chronological order of the series is Pride and Premeditation, Sense and Second-Degree Murder, and Manslaughter Park.
A Matter of Murder is the second book in Price’s Lizzie & Darcy Mysteries duology, which is a spinoff from Pride and Premeditation. The first book, In Want of a Suspect was released in 2024.
You can read the Lizzie & Darcy Mysteries without reading the Jane Austen Mysteries, but you’ll have some questions. It’s fairly easy to figure out most of the answers, but it’s more enjoyable if you read them all in order.
As you can imagine, Price has taken some liberties with the source material — a lot of the main characters hold positions that wouldn’t have be acceptable at the time — but she’s captured the Lizzie and Darcy’s personalities. Lizzie is smart, determined and a bright spark. Darcy isn’t as vibrant, but the interplay between the two is solid.
A Matter of Murder is not necessarily fast-moving, but the pacing is sound, and the storyline holds interest, with enough twists and turns to make you want to keep reading. It’s a slow-burn, chaste romance with a satisfying conclusion.
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