Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
Publisher Dutton, August 2007
In this Jane Austen–inspired comedy, love story, and exploration of identity and destiny, a modern LA girl wakes up as an Englishwoman in Austen’s time.
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 nineteenth-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. Especially with a suitor who may not turn out to be a familiar species of philanderer after all.
“A rich, saucy lark of a book for all of us who have ever looked at our lives and marveled, ‘How did I get here?’”
— Marisa de los Santos, author of LOVE WALKED IN
“Courtney, flung into the past, learns the importance of living in the present even as she challenges our assumptions about identity and memory. I read this wonderful novel in a single sitting; Jane Austen fans will love it!”
— Masha Hamilton, author of THE CAMEL BOOK MOBILE
“Confessions is a novel of manners, but with a nifty twist. Laurie Viera Rigler sets the sensibilities of a 21st century L.A. woman against the manners of Regency England to watch the sparks fly. By turns funny, thoughtful, romantic and suspenseful, this engaging story is as brisk and delightful as “taking a turn in the shrubbery” in the company of a handsome gentleman. If you’ve ever fantasized about being a Jane Austen heroine, this is your book.”
— Judith Ryan Hendricks, author of BREAD ALONE
“Laurie Viera Rigler evokes the Jane Austen period masterfully, along with the perplexity of a 21st century L.A. woman, Courtney Stone,who lands unexpectedly in the body of a 19th century British woman in a world of chamber pots, chaperones, and different rules about finding true love. Courtney’s navigation of the delicate 19th century social scene and her attempts to figure out how to get back to her “real” 21st century life make for a hilarious and affecting, all-around wonderful read.”
— Ellen Baker, author of KEEPING THE HOUSE
