Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict - Hardcover

Rigler, Laurie Viera

3.18

14,223 ratings by Goodreads

9780525950400: Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525950400 ISBN 13: 9780525950400

Publisher: Dutton, 2007

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Read Laurie Viera Rigler's posts on the Penguin Blog.

After nursing a broken engagement with Jane Austen novels and Absolut, Courtney Stone wakes up and finds herself not in her Los Angeles bedroom or even in her own body, but inside the bedchamber of a woman in Regency England. Who but an Austen addict like herself could concoct such a fantasy? Not only is Courtney stuck in another woman’s life, she is forced to pretend she actually is that woman; and despite knowing nothing about her, she manages to fool even the most astute observer. But not even her level of Austen mania has prepared Courtney for the chamber pots and filthy coaching inns of nineteenth-century England, let alone the realities of being a single woman who must fend off suffocating chaperones, condom-less seducers, and marriages of convenience. This looking-glass Austen world is not without its charms, however. There are journeys to Bath and London, balls in the Assembly Rooms, and the enigmatic Mr. Edgeworth, who may not be a familiar species of philanderer after all. But when Courtney’s borrowed brain serves up memories that are not her own, the ultimate identity crisis ensues. Will she ever get her real life back, and does she even want to?

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From the Author:

People always ask me how I came up with the idea for this book. The funny thing is that my protagonist, Courtney Stone, simply popped into my head one day when I was standing in the kitchen doing something mundane. I saw, in my mind's eye, this twenty-first-century Austen fan from Los Angeles waking up one morning in a four-poster bed. In Regency England. In someone else's body. I couldn't stop thinking about Courtney, and I began to write down what I saw in my head. The story kept coming, and before I knew it I was completely immersed in writing a novel.

Considering my own obsession with Jane Austen, it's not all that surprising that such a character would pop into my head. But what did surprise me is the journey that my heroine and I took together as I wrote, rewrote, researched, and finally turned out a finished, polished novel.

Along that journey I discovered a whole universe of Austen-obsessed people (I used to think I was the only one!). My research into Jane Austen's world put a dent in some of those Hollywood-sanitized romantic notions I had about what it would be like to live there. Which provided a great many opportunities for comedy in my book. Nevertheless, there was, and still is, a great deal about Austen's world that I still find very appealing. Which is why Courtney, my heroine, finds herself torn between what she left behind and where she has ended up. And has a wild adventure as she figures it all out.

From the Back Cover:

After nursing a broken engagement with Jane Austen novels and Absolut, Courtney Stone wakes up and finds herself not in her Los Angeles bedroom or even in her own body, but inside the bedchamber of a woman in Regency England.

Not only is Courtney stuck in another woman's life, she is forced to pretend she actually is that woman; and despite knowing nothing about her, she manages to fool even the most astute observer. But not even her level of Austen mania has prepared Courtney for the chamber pots and filthy coaching inns of nineteenth-century England, let alone the realities of being a single woman who must fend off suffocating chaperones, condom-less seducers, and marriages of convenience. This looking glass Austen world is not without its charms, however, with journeys to Bath and London, balls in the Assembly Rooms, and the enigmatic Mr. Edgeworth. But when Courtney's borrowed brain serves up memories that are not her own, the ultimate identity crisis ensues. Will she ever get her real life back? Does she even want to?

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