Do you hide your Austen movie DVDs so nobody will know you’re in love with Mr. Darcy? If so, then you might also benefit from a trip to Austenland. When Great-Aunt Carolyn dies, she leaves Jane Hayes with a nonrefundable reservation at an exclusive resort… that caters to women (and possibly men) with Austen fantasies.
Did Carolyn do this for Jane to kick her Darcy infatuation or to encourage it? Jane thinks it was done in hopes to give Jane freedom from her impossible daydream, but I think it was meant to help her stop getting in the way of her own Mr. Darcy.
When Jane arrives she’s immediately dubbed Miss Jane Erstwhile and forced to fork over all her modern clothes and gadgets. The first man she meets on the site is Theodore the gardener, his real name is Martin Jasper. He’s there to act as dance instructor, as nobody else was available. He’s tall, good looking, and inspires quite a bit of lust in Jane.
As she meets the lead actors and paying players, Jane dithers back and forth between being really into it and thinking it all a lark. Mr. Nobley is the most Darcy-like of the men and she finds him irritating and (a tad) boring (in the beginning) but undeniably sexy. She makes it her business to pick and poke fun in homes of eliciting conversation and smiles from him.
The novel revolves around her relation with these two men. Each of the chapters starts out with the details of one of her past relationships: how they met, what they did, and why they broke up. Parts of the narrative were frankly bizarre as I was reading it from third person heroine point of view and she sometimes referred to Erstwhile as if the woman wasn’t herself. It was like the author was getting in the way of the heroine.
Will finish by saying the ending was great – and I wouldn’t mind seeing this as a three hour BBC miniseries!
Rating: 3.5-4 Stars
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This post was written by...
Keira – who has written 1034 posts on Love Romance Passion.
Keira's favorite type of heroes are blind, scarred, and tortured... yes, she understands those should be separate, but all 3 at once is also nice! She enjoys historical romances best and adores audio books because great narrators turn books into auditory/mental movies (and she loves her romantic dramas like Pride and Prejudice/North and South!) Learn more about Keira in My Instant Turn Ons, Offs, and Ifs.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
My daughter has read this book and she just raved about it. She is a Pride and Predjudice buff I am taking it home with me so that I can read it as well. Sounds wonderful.
It was! You should curl up with it one evening. It’s a very fast read.
Haven’t read this book (yet !). But there is already a
series called Lost In Austen, which went out here a couple of years ago.
It’s great fun. Lizzie Bennet swops places with Amanda
Price(your basic modern day P&P lover) & complications ensue. Worth seeing, if only for the bit where Amanda asks Darcy to jump in a lake, & then tells him it’s a “Post modern thing “.
I think it’s available on region 1 DVD