Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict - Hardcover

Laurie Viera Rigler

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 074759421X ISBN 13: 9780747594215

Publisher: BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC, 2009

Synopsis

In this Jane Austen–inspired comedy, love story, and exploration of identity and destiny, a modern LA girl wakes up as an Englishwoman in Austen’s time.

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 love of Jane Austen 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, condomless seducers, and marriages of convenience. Enter the enigmatic Mr. Edgeworth, who fills Courtney’s borrowed brain with confusing memories that are clearly not her own.

Try as she might to control her mind and find a way home, Courtney cannot deny that she is becoming this other woman—and being this other woman is not without its advantages: Especially in a looking-glass Austen world. Especially with a suitor who may not turn out to be a familiar species of philanderer after all.

About this title

About the Author

When not indulging herself in re-readings of Jane Austen’s six novels, Laurie Viera Rigler is a freelance book editor who teaches writing workshops, including classes at Vroman’s, Southern California’s oldest and largest independent bookstore. Laurie lives in Los Angeles and is a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America.

Reviews

Aclever time-travel setup functions as the prime attraction for this breezy debut novel. Courtney Stone, a single Los Angeles woman recovering from the double whammy of a broken engagement and a failed friendship, wakes up after a night of self-medicating with her drug of choice, Jane Austen novels, to find herself in 1813 England. She's inhabiting the body of Jane Mansfield, a manor-born Englishwoman who, at 30, has yet to find a husband, confounding her humorless, Miss Bossy-corset stand-in mother. While still haunted by real-life memories, Courtney, as Jane, soon gets swept up in this Austenesque world of decadent meals and grand balls, gentlemen in form-fitting knee breeches and traveling with her friend Mary, whose brother, Charles Edgeworth, appears to have an interest in Jane that Courtney struggles to understand. As her identity starts to meld with Jane's, Courtney rethinks who she wants to be (and to be with) in any time period. While her 21st-century anachronisms can be comical, Courtney, for such an Austen addict, is unconvincingly naïve about Regency norms. Fans of the ever-expanding inspired-by-Austen-lit garden party will find a winner here; it doesn't hurt that Austen has a brief, comical cameo. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Its easy listening to this funny, clever story about Courtney Stone, a woman with only her Jane Austen novels to keep her company as she wallows over a broken engagement--until she wakes up in the nineteenth century in the body of Jane Mansfield, an English woman looking for a husband. Courtneys sarcastic nature is brought to life by Orlagh Cassidy, who is spot-on in her portrayal of the confusion and detached amusement Courtney feels in the body of someone living nearly 200 years ago. Likewise, Cassidy expertly distinguishes the other characters, immersing listeners in the time period while still maintaining the perspective of her 21st-century character. Though its difficult to hear this wonderful production come to a close, this time-bending story ends just as it should. B.H. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Talk about an out-of-body experience. One moment Courtney Stone is a modern-day L.A. career woman lamenting a lost love; the next she is Jane Mansfield, a well-to-do, willowy (though not particularly buxom, unlike her twentieth-century namesake) lady in nineteenth-century England. What could account for this transplant of time and place? Courtney has no opportunity to ruminate over such matters; she must quickly learn to interact with inhabitants of the brave old world in which she finds herself. There's her mother, determined to marry 30-year-old Jane off to handsome Mr. Edgeworth; her artist father, more inclined to his daughter's free-spirited frame of mind; and faithful servant Miss Barnes, who helps her mistress manage everything from chaperones to corsets. (Thank goodness Jane has read Pride and Prejudice more than a dozen times.) It's not long before Jane finds the lines blurred between her two vastly different selves. Like her heroine, debut author Rigler boasts an obsession with the novels of Jane Austen. This frothy take on literary time travel will appeal most to readers well versed in the celebrated author's memorable characters and themes. Block, Allison

Edition details

• Publisher: BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 074759421X
• ISBN 13: 9780747594215
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1