Really enjoyed this new series. There's been a murder via poisoning at the meeting of the jane Austen Society. Erin and friends are sleuthing to help find the culprit. Meanwhile, Erin is drawn & attracted to Detective Hemming as well as the handsome and mysterious Jonathan Alder, new to town and the group.

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Pride, Prejudice and Poison by Elizabeth Blake is the first novel in A Jane Austen Society Mystery series. I enjoyed the setting of Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, England. It is a quaint village with a variety of quirky residents. It seems that everyone is a fan of Jane Austen and her books. Erin loves to quote from Jane Austen's novels and the villagers are frequently reading different versions of the authors works. I did feel that the Austen element was overdone (too many quotes). I wish it had been done with a lighter hand so it would have retained the humor. I did, though, like how the quotes connected to the plot. Erin Coleridge owns the used bookstore, Readers Quarry where the villagers tend to congregate for tea and gossip. Erin is a member of the local Jane Austen Society. At their monthly meetings there is controversy. While the group takes a tea break, the club's president, Sylvia Pemberthy drops dead. Erin jumps into the investigation when it appears that the killer is setting up Farnsworth Appleby to take the fall. Erin flirts with the investigating detective who is referred to in my copy (an ARC) as DI Peter Hadley and DI Peter Hemming (talk about confusing). I am sure this was corrected for the final version. There were multiple suspects in this whodunit, but the killer can be identified quite easily (before the body departs for the inquest). I would have liked a bit more of a challenge. Erin's behavior mimics that of most amateur sleuths. She lies to the police, asks questions, stumbles upon information and puts herself in danger. I felt that Pride, Prejudice and Poison was a slow starter because of the introduction of so many villagers (a little much at the start). Gossip spreads rapidly in the small village and tea is consumed in vast quantities. Pride, Prejudice and Poison is a lighthearted cozy mystery with Austen admirers, toxic tea, a bounty of books, an introverted investigator, and a set up suspect.

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Pride, Prejudice and Poison is the debut of the A Jane Austen Society Mystery series set in the English village of Kirkbymoorside in Yorkshire and features antiquarian bookstore owner Erin Coleridge and members of the local Jane Austen Society. It's time for the monthly meeting of the Society and tensions are running high between current President Sylvia Pemberthy and the younger members of the club who would like to see changes in the future. During a tea break, Sylvia collapses and dies, poisoned - and while nobody seems to be grieving over her loss, questions begin to swirl over which one of the members hated her enough to kill her.

The murder brings Detective Inspector Peter Hemming and his partner Sergeant Rashid Jarral to the sleepy town and they begin to point fingers at Erin's best friend, Farnsworth Appleby, know as the town's Tragic Widow and the Cat Lady. Despite warnings from the police not to get involved Erin takes matters into her own hands to clear her friends name.

If you aren't a fan of Jane Austen or familiar with her works, the story tends to bog down with the constant quoting of paragraphs and sayings from her books. For me it became a huge distraction from the plot, and made the entire cast of characters very difficult to like. It was fairly easy to pinpoint the murderer from the start and so I found myself just "slogging" along to the finish. Sadly, I don't think that I will be traveling to Kirkbymoorside again.

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