Austenland (Austenland, #1)

by Shannon Hale

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a thirty-something woman in possession of a satisfying career and fabulous hairdo must be in want of very little, and Jane Hayes, pretty enough and clever enough, was certainly thought to have little to distress her. There was no husband, but those weren’t necessary anymore. There were boyfriends, and if they came and went in a regular stream of mutual dissatisfaction—well, that was the way of things, wasn’t it?

“Miss Erstwhile, do you enjoy novels?” “I do, yes.” “I know they are naughty things, but I devour novels. The Castle of Otronto had me in chills.” “Yes, how can I forget that giant helmet?” Jane had done her homework on gothic romances a few years ago, thank goodness, in an attempt to appreciate Northanger Abbey. “But Mrs. Radcliffe’s writings are my favorite, particularly The Mysteries of Udolpho.”

Jane nearly ran away before pity for the poor woman drove her to knock at the door. Besides, Jane thought, I’m in the game for real now, and this is what a Regency woman would do. Even elitist Emma made house calls.

Jane thought she understood why Austen often left these conversations up to the narrator and spared the reader the grotesquerie of having to follow it word by word.

When Matilda led him away, Jane announced to the empty room, “If you’re listening, Big Brother, I refuse to be Fanny Price.”

There is no Mr. Darcy. Or more likely, Mr. Darcy would actually be a boring, pompous pinhead.