Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

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In this Jane Austenainspired comedy, love story, and exploration of identity and destiny, a modern LA girl wakes up as an Englishwoman in Austenas 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 womanas 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 Courtneyas 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 womanaand 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.

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Publisher’s Weekly (06/04/2007)
A clever 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.)

Library Journal (07/15/2007)
Waking up in early 19th-century Britain is not a common occurrence for a 21st-century gal from L.A. Yet Courtney Stone, just having dumped her womanizing fiancé, does wake up during the Regency era in the home and body of Jane Mansfield (yes, she acknowledges the irony), a woman of 30 who has just fallen from a horse. As Courtney realizes that she is not dreaming, she becomes attuned to the thoughts, feelings, and memories of her host. First novelist Rigler has taken her own love of author Austen and superimposed it onto Courtney, a repeat reader and viewer of all things Jane. Aside from the obvious, there are other complications afoot, including a possible dalliance with a footman and the confused emotions regarding Charles Edgeworth, a prospective suitor and the brother of Jane's dearest friend, Mary. Throw in Jane's stern mother, her back-stabbing cousin, and a fortune-teller, and it's one wild time-traveling ride. Or is it? At book's end, it isn't quite clear where (or who) Courtney/Jane is. The voice of our heroine isn't well established either. She quotes from her favorite author's novels at will, but her tone and behavior are more that of a recalcitrant Valley Girl. What began as a charming premise becomes downright irritating. Perhaps exhaustive Austen collections would be interested. An optional purchase for public libraries. [See Prepub Alert,LJ 5/1/07.]-Bette-Lee Fox,Library Journal

ISBN: 0525950400 | EAN: 9780525950400
Publisher: Dutton Books  | Publication Date: August, 2007

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