Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
By Laurie Viera Rigler
(Plume, Paperback, 9780452289727, 304pp.)
Publication Date: May 2008
Categories: Contemporary Women
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The Los Angeles Times bestseller that has Austen lovers hooked
After nursing a broken engagement with Jane Austen novels and Absolut, Courtney Stone wakes up to find 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 inside 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. For her borrowed body knows how to speak without slaying the King's English, dance without maiming her partner, and embroider as if possessed by actual domestic skill.
But not even Courtney's level of Austen mania has prepared her 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, condom-less seducers, and marriages of convenience. Enter the enigmatic Mr. Edgeworth, a suitor who may turn out not to be a familiar species of philanderer after all.
Laurie Viera Rigler is a freelance book editor who teaches writing workshops, including classes at Vroman's, Southern California's oldest and largest independent bookstore. Laurie lives in Los Angeles and holds a lifetime membership in the Jane Austen Society of North America. This is her first novel.
1. Would you have handled things differently if you found yourself in Courtney's/Jane's situation? Which things would you have done differently? Which things would you have done the same?
?A devotee of all things Austen? discovers the reality of life in Regency England: rampant body odor, sexual and class repression and a style of medical care involving bloodletting.? Despite the smells, little in [her] current lifestyle?including most of the men?can compete with the erotic charge of dancing in a candlelit ballroom.?
?USA Today
?[A] delightful comic romp? Jane Austen makes a cameo appearance that is pure pleasure.?
?The Times Picayune
?[A] charming novel? Rigler writes beautifully? a light and deftly orchestrated visit to 1813.?
?Austenblog.com
?[A] winner.?
?Publishers Weekly
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