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Cosy, quirky and utterly gripping, A Crime Through Time is the debut from Amelia Blackwell – the start of a series where crime, time travel and Jane Austen collide.
Pemberley, 1799. When Miss Georgiana Darcy attempts to escape an unwanted marriage proposal, she isn’t expecting to end up quite so far from home. But after encountering a mysterious object in the nearby woods, she finds herself transported almost two hundred years into the future.
Saltram, 1995. At a grand country house where a film crew are busy shooting the latest Jane Austen adaptation, a terrible crime has been committed. And Miss Darcy – newly arrived, impeccably dressed and thoroughly confused – is the only witness.
It soon becomes clear that, somehow, Georgiana was meant to solve this riddle. With the help of a distractingly handsome Irishman named Quinn and a border collie named Watson, she sets out to stop the killer before they can strike again. But meanwhile, trouble is brewing back at Pemberley and time, it seems, is not on her side . . .
MY THOUGHTS
My thanks to Chloe of Pan Macmillan for the tour invite and for the copy to review. A Crime Through Time is available in Ebook, Audiobook and Hardback formats (10 July 2025).
The main character here is Georgiana Darcy, the younger sister of Fitzwilliam Darcy (I can’t be the only person who has Colin Firth in my head whenever Darcy is mentioned!). 20 year old Georgiana is at Pemberley when Darcy’s awful aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh arrives with her daughter Anne and an uninvited guest. Georgiana is desperate to avoid an unwanted proposal and whilst walking in the woods finds a strange device, which when pressed moves her nearly 200 years into the future to 1995.
Her destination is Saltram House in Devon where her appearance fits in well with a Jane Austen film set. This location is at the heart of the story and where Georgiana meets Irishman Quinn, a security guard at the estate – a tale of murder and mayhem begins.
I loved the character of Georgiana. She is spirited, intelligent and whilst totally confused by modern life she throws herself into investigating. Quinn is the perfect companion and his measured behaviour is a foil to Georgiana’s impulsiveness. Events at Pemberley are on Georgiana’s mind and give her another reason to stay at Saltram.
This time travelling cozy mystery is a fun and entertaining read and whilst I thought it rather light on plot, the characterisation is excellent. It can’t be easy to reproduce the correct tone and language from such a well known historical fictional character but the author expertly manages the dialogue and it seems authentic.
I enjoyed both timelines, especially with the short chapters, and whilst I didn’t have a hope of solving the mystery, the lighthearted humour and touch of romance was a relief from the happenings at Pemberley. The ending appears to pave the way for the next book – Georgiana will be an interesting character to follow.
Amelia Blackwell has a master’s degree in Creative Writing, a corn snake called Colin, and a deep love of the works of Jane Austen. Although the Boleyns appear in her family tree, it’s through marriage, not blood, which is probably just as well. Georgiana Darcy’s most persistent suitor, Baron John de Halighwell, takes his name from one of Amelia’s distant great-grandfathers, who lived in a mansion that even Lady Catherine de Bourgh would admire. Amelia lives with her husband and children in a tiny house by the sea in Cornwall. She has previously published YA under a different name.
