Back in Time

'Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict'
Author: Laurie Viera Rigler

Format: Audio Book
Published: Penguin Audiobooks; July 2007
Narrator: Orlagh Cassidy
Genre: Jane Austen; Chick-lit; Historical fiction
Grade: A
Source: Library

Synopsis: 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 19th-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. And especially with a suitor who may not turn out to be a familiar species of philanderer after all. 

My Take:  I love Jane Austen! I think most women who like modern chick lit and women's fiction do. I am also not a purist and love the reinterpretations. I don't read them too often, but when I do, for the most part I tend to find them pretty amusing. Hoping they are done well I find that its usually a great twist on an old classic. My latest find via my library audiobook selection left me smiling as it was another great twist on a classic Austen storytelling, and just general fun in the 19th Century!

The premise is silly but it works. Courtney is a modern day women who somehow finds herself awake one morning as Jane Manesfield and it is no longer 21st century Los Angeles as she knows it, but instead mid-19th century England and all of the rules have changed. What's more is it's not as if she has woken up in her old body but instead in a new one and she has the mannerisms and speech befitting her new class yet her brain still acts like her old life. It's really pretty amusing to imagine yourself in this situation so it actually works quite well.

Maybe it's because it's an audiobook and the narrator does such a great job with all of the characters but it's so easy to get lost in the story and you really want to root for Jane. You want her to figure out her situation because listening (or reading) at home, you don't really know any more about her situation than she does. Yet Jane doesn't want to make mistakes for the inhabitant of her body because what if she were to suddenly be transplanted back and now the old her is saddled with a husband she doesn't love in a life she doesn't want to live? It's all very amusing.

The Jane Austen twist? Well, Jane Manesfield, or Courtney, depending on how you want to look at our heroine is a huge Jane Austen fan. She reads her as her escape, both in the present and in the past. When in the past, she is in fact able to meet Jane Austen. It is her reading of the novels that helps her navigate some of the social mores of the time.

Perhaps it is because it is loosely based on Jane Austen and not on a specific novel and perhaps because it so clearly is just for fun that I really did thoroughly enjoy listening to this novel and would highly recommend it to others as well who are looking for a little escape too!

Cover Lust: I like it! Knowing that it's not an old fashioned book but in fact quite a modern twist makes me like this cover even more because I think it's a little tongue in cheek.