From the desk of Lisa Galek: There are tons of ways to flirt… and just as many ways to break hearts in the process. A casual smile or a wink can lead to long-awaited romance or lots of unwanted attention. Claire LaZebnik explores all this and more in The Trouble with Flirting, her contemporary young... Continue Reading →
Finding Colin Firth: A Novel, by Mia March – A Review
From the desk of Christina Boyd: What Janeite would not stop dead in her tracks when she spies “Colin Firth” in the title of a book? Mia March’s latest offering Finding Colin Firth: A Novel certainly set off all my bells and whistles. The smolderingly sexy British actor not only won our hearts when he... Continue Reading →
Lady Ann’s Excellent Adventure: A Regency Short Story, by Candice Hern – A Review
Have you ever read a short story and wished it was a full-length novel? That is how I felt after completing Lady Ann’s Excellent Adventure. Short and sweet at 43 pages, Candice Hern has introduced characters that I instantly loved and wanted to know more about. What grabbed me so immediately you ask? The humor... Continue Reading →
Jane Austen’s England, by Roy and Lesley Adkins – A Review
From the desk of Shelley DeWees: “In her novels Jane Austen brilliantly portrayed the lives of the middle and upper classes, but barely mentioned the cast of characters who constituted the bulk of the population. It would be left to the genius of the next generation, Charles Dickens, to write novels about the poor, the... Continue Reading →
Confessions of Marie Antoinette: A Novel, by Juliet Grey – A Review
From the desk of Lauren Puzier: In 1789, Marie Antoinette was a thirty-three-year-old queen, a wife, and a mother. One day in October she took her last walk through the Trianon gardens, her peaceful respite from the demands of palace life, fully unaware that for the next five years she would ride the waves of... Continue Reading →
Blackmoore: A Proper Romance, by Julianne Donaldson – A Review
From the desk of Katie Patchell: In 2012 Julianne Donaldson published her debut novel, the highly successful Regency romance Edenbrooke. Now in 2013, she has written her second Regency novel, Blackmoore, which is set on the moors and windswept cliffs of England, in the halls of an old manor, filled with binding secrets, forgotten memories,... Continue Reading →
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife: Pride and Prejudice Continues, by Linda Berdoll – A Review
From the desk of Christina Boyd: Author Linda Berdoll’s first novel in her continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was originally self-published in 1999 as The Bar Sinister. This reviewer, however, discovered her work in 2006, after Sourcebooks had re-published it under the new title (in 2004) Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife. Mind, I... Continue Reading →
The Regency Detective, by David Lassman and Terence James – A Review
From the desk of Stephanie Barron: When the movie can’t help but be much better than the book: A confession of my own, as I embark on this review: I write a series of mystery novels set in late-Georgian and Regency England, which feature Jane Austen as a detective. As a result, I might be... Continue Reading →
A Jane Austen Daydream, by Scott D. Southard – A Review
From the desk of Lisa Galek: A gentleman of my acquaintance once confidently assured me that the writings of Jane Austen were much too “girly.” By this, of course, he meant that they were beneath his notice as a man. Naturally, he’d never read a page of Austen or seen any of the movies based... Continue Reading →
A Fatal Likeness: A Novel, by Lynn Shepherd – A Review
From the desk of Br. Paul Byrd, OP “The Young Romantics have inspired hundreds of books, plays, and films over the last two centuries, and there have been many accounts of that famous summer they spent together on Lake Geneva in 1816, when Frankenstein was conceived. But all the same there remain many inexplicable gaps... Continue Reading →
The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen, by Lindsay Ashford – A Review
I had the pleasure of reading this mystery novel in 2011 when it was published in the UK as The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen. I was very happy to learn that it was being published for the North American market by Sourcebooks as The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen. After a recent second... Continue Reading →
Mr. Darcy’s Diary (Audiobook), by Maya Slater, read by David Rintoul – A Review
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: Ever wonder if a book you read several years ago and loved still stacks up? I did and was tempted to revisit one of my favorite Pride and Prejudice sequels, Mr. Darcy’s Diary, in audiobook for my summer listening. Read by Mr. Darcy himself—well not quite—but close, the... Continue Reading →