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From Publishers Weekly
Orlagh Cassidy is delightfully fun as Courtney Stone, a modern Los Angeles girl nursing a heartbreak who wakes up to find herself inhabiting the body and life of a Jane Austenesque Regency girl. Cassidy is spot-on with Courtney's California accent, modern-day moaning about men, self-analysis and doubt, and sarcasm—and then, without missing a beat, flips easily into the proper, upper-class English tones of Jane (the Regency girl Courtney has replaced, whose accent came with the body), her pompous, controlling mother, her desperate suitor and her sympathetic best friend. Orlagh's lively narration makes Courtney even more endearing and brings the colorful story to life. Fans of Austen, chick lit, and romantic comedies should definitely put this one on their listening list.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
From Booklist
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
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
Why is it so dark in here? Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Why is it so dark in here? Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
It was... Ok...,
By
This review is from: Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (Paperback)
Maybe I read to many fantasy novels and watched too many Sci-fi shows, but while this was a fun book with a great premise, I found the lack of details regarding the 'hows' of time travel disappointing. I'm not sure how Courtney ended up in Jane's body' Or what happened to Jane during that time ' especially since it was Jane who wished she was someone else. The final chapter didn't really wrap things up for me, and if anything, it left me with more questions.It would have been great if we could see Jane's experiences during our time as well. And all that self-discovery about Wes ' where did that go? I just felt like I was left hanging'
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing,
By
This review is from: Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (Paperback)
I'm fond of Jane Austen myself, and I was intrigued by the premise, an obsessive reader finding herself in that world. The story starts with a promising beginning, as Courtney wakes up to unfamiliar faces in the world she's dreamed about, only they're insisting she's sick and needs to let the doctor cut on her with his razor for awhile. The situation is well presented, with a comical twist, and I was able to simultaneously laugh at Courtney while sympathising with her.Unfortunately, this is the best scene in the novel. A lot of the situations and characters Courtney comes across should have been familiar to someone who claims to have read Pride and Prejudice twenty times, but she's apparently either self-absorbed or thick-headed enough to have missed those parts of the stories. She's completely unaware that it's considered a big deal if people knock boots before they get married until the end of the book. I'm pretty sure even casual fans, whose impressions of Jane Austen's novels consist entirely of Colin Firth prancing around in ruffly collars picked up that little piece of history, so I'm not entirely sure what Courtney's problem is. Actually, I take that back. Courtney has a lot of problems, not just one, and they add up to her being an unsympathetic character. She comes to the conclusion early on that she's caught in someone else's life, but she really doesn't care about the effect her actions might have on the person returning to that life, since she'll be back in her modern apartment by then. In fact, it's not until the end that she decides maybe she should consider how her actions affect other people, and she can't exactly claim ignorance when she's been expressly warned about the things she does before she does them. Then she makes the same mistakes over and over. The combination of idiocy and self-absorption had me banging my head against the wall through most of the book. The prose is written in first person, present tense, which was an interesting choice, especially considering this is a story that deals with time travel. Since the novel's "hook" is following a modern girl into the past, the first person narrative makes sense, but I'm not convinced the present tense was the natural choice for a story like this one. Rigler has done her research on the time period and on Austen's novels in particular, but her knowledge and premise fall flat when she tries too hard to draw comparisons between modern attitudes and those of Austen's time, creating a very inconsistent set of scenarios, all tied up with a confounding ending. It's too bad, really. From the title and concept, I really wanted to like the book. I get annoyed when something with potential goes horribly, horribly wrong, and this book had my annoyance levels going through the roof. This is not a book I will be keeping on my shelf.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Confusions of a Jane Austen Addict,
By Pandora (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (Paperback)
If anyone else out there is going to take on Jane Austen in another chick-lit format, here's a few thoughts from someone who loves Jane Austen's novels:Don't do it! I beg you. For those who love Jane Austen, just keep rereading her novels and don't waste your time on poorly written stuff like this. I won't do it anymore. Paul Newman is famous for the comment (when talking about his wife Joanne Woodward) but it applies here, too, "Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?" If you've got Jane Austen on your bookshelves, why go out and buy something of a much poorer quality? I see there is a sequel coming. Marketing another chick-lit book like this one -- where the characters are two dimensional, where the story is a limp and confused facsimile of Jane Austen's -- and the humour (and dialogue) is utterly clichéd and ham-fisted -- seems to be merely one more attempt to grab more cash using the name and work of a great writer. As a time travel book, it is a confused mess, really. If she ties up all the dangling ends in the second book, I won't find out. I won't be buying it. Jane Austen wrote, "My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company." I am absolutely certain that, Jane Austen, even with her wry humour and understanding of human frailties would not, for one second, find this book good company.
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