Engaging and entertaining first novel from a real-life Jane Austen addict

by Joceline Bury

Issue 40

The LOST IN AUSTEN theme—21st century woman is transported to Regency England and embarks on a quest for her very own Mr. Darcy—has cropped up regularly in publishers’ lists over the past few years, with varying degrees of success.

It’s an appealing formula, allowing the author to re-examine the thwarted love motif from a contemporary viewpoint, while showing off her familiarity with all things Austen. And, more often than not, reworking some of English literature’s finest character creations and plot lines to entertaining effect.

So, here we have self-confessed Austen addict Courtney Stone passing out in California after an evening of drowning her considerable sorrows in Absolut vodka and yet another re-reading of Pride & Prejudice—and waking in another body, another century and another continent.

The body in question is that of Jane Mansfield—Austenian irony very much intended in that carefully chosen name—a spinster of 30, with a scheming mother keen to marry her off to a rich but indubitably duplicitous suitor.

The ripe smells of Regency England, the lack of a decent toothbrush and the intricacies of corsets eventually convince our heroine that she isn’t simply enduring a particularly vivid dream, and she begins to live Jane’s life for real.

Rigler’s writing is snappy, fresh and often laugh-out-loud funny, as a very modern girl tries to adapt to a way of life that she has glimpsed only in her beloved Austen novels. Gradually, though, Courtney/Jane starts speaking—and even thinking—like a genuine early 19th century heroine. This mismatch between Courtney’s ‘real’ character and her assumed persona produces the unsettling atmosphere of a dream that all too often teeters on the edge of a nightmare.

Of course, Courtney’s quest is to discover what has gone wrong in Jane’s life to allow the time-travel switch to occur—and at the same time to heal the wounds in her own heart so that she can return home.

The resolution is achieved in true Austen fashion, with various wrongs righted and misunderstandings unravelled, and our heroine gleaning wisdom and understanding from her adventures in another’s life.