I've come to the end of some long running series. Stephanie Barron doesn't say that Jane and the Year Without a Summer is the last Jane Austen mystery, but it takes place only a few months before her death and she travels to Bath with Cassandra due to her declining health. There she encounters Raphael West (the replacement for her Gentleman Rogue) again, unpleasant fellow lodgers, and, of course, a suspicious death. Jane solves the mystery with an unlikely culprit, but it's a mediocre one. This final installment leaves us with a sense of melancholy because we know Jane will die before fully editing Persuasion and if her symptoms are any indication, it will not be a comfortable death. There's also the "what could have been" feelings from her encounters with Raphael West because she rejects his advances due to her impending death. In a way, it's appropriate that a volcanic eruption made Jane's last year one that was truly without a summer.
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