Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Patillo
On a Jane Austen-inspired junket this holiday season, I read these two novels. I enjoyed this one a little more, in part because it did not try to have a happy ending. I think that is one of the mistakes of a lot of romances. Yes, romance readers want happy endings. But there are a lot of good books to be read about romances that almost worked, but not quite. In fact, I suspect most romantic couples may not necessarily have an HEA ending.
This is about Emma Grant, who has always believed that she was living the life of a Jane Austen heroine. She is a professor at a university who specializes in Austen, at least until her life falls apart, her husband admits to having an affair with his intern, who has also stolen credit for Emma's latest research and thus gets her kicked out of her job. She goes to England after a mysterious woman sends her a letter which hints at a spectacular discovery about Jane Austen. Emma is determined not to let herself be sentimental, and she is going to out Jane Austen in order to save her career. She has no intention of falling in love with the old boyfriend she rejected years ago, either.
I like romances in which I feel that the romance is not forced. Too often, it feels like "Mr. Right" is simply right because he is standing there, in the spot labeled "Mr. Right." I don't feel like there are other choices. (Not that I like love triangles, either.) Honestly, I don't like many romances at all because they feel about all the things that I find superficially romantic, but not romantic at all, like flowers, chocolate, and love songs. Real romance is about cleaning out the toilet together, in my opinion.
Also about the other person seeing you at your worst and helping you see how to be a little bit better. Not magical, complete transformations mind you. And not necessarily the kind of hurts that are overly dramatic. But small stuff, little hurts that are part of everyday life and real marriages, which are the real stuff of romance.
I liked this book because it felt real to me. I believed the twists and turns in the romance. More than that, I absolutely believed the Jane Austen part of the story, and that surprised me. I'm not an Austen expert, but I know enough about the academic world to be pretty skeptical. Yet the idea that there might be a secret society that had some of the letters that Jane's sister Cassandra had supposedly destroyed about Austen's real romance? I bought in completely.
Emma's dilemma about choosing to honor Jane's wishes or not was also real. OK, there were some hokey twists when it came to the end, but I still liked it. And I liked that in the end, Emma had to give up her academic position and make a new life for herself. I liked that she wasn't sure how love would fit in that new life, and that there wasn't this need to push the romance to an untimely conclusion.
Weekend with Mr. Darcy by Victoria Connelly
This is a double romance and it suffers from some of the same problems that double romances often do (one of the romances is better than the other). There is Warwick and Katherine and Jace and Robyn. Warwick and Katherine are secret pen-pals (secret to Katherine, who thinks the person she is writing to is a female writer of Regency romance called Lorna Warwick). They meet at a Jane Austen conference. Some of the best parts of this book were, for me, the descriptions of the conference. I especially loved the Undressing Mr. Darcy section, but I felt all of them were true to life, and I enjoyed the conference vicariously.
Warwick and Katherine fall in love, and predictably, the truth is revealed, Katherine feels betrayed, but Warwick humbles himself, begs for forgiveness a la Mr. Darcy and gets his second chance with her.
Jace and Robyn were a trickier romance for me. Robyn comes to the Jane Austen conference with an old boyfriend. In some ways, this made it harder for me to root for her new romance with Jace, but on the other hand, it felt real to me and it gave me a sense of choice. That is, she doesn't have only one Mr. Right to choose from. Her relationship with her old boyfriend was touching and yet not complete. I liked how he proposed to her and she said yes, then turned him down later. I liked how this mirrored Jane Austen's life.
On the other hand, there were a lot of predictable "romance" moments, so I don't know if everyone would love it.
On a Jane Austen-inspired junket this holiday season, I read these two novels. I enjoyed this one a little more, in part because it did not try to have a happy ending. I think that is one of the mistakes of a lot of romances. Yes, romance readers want happy endings. But there are a lot of good books to be read about romances that almost worked, but not quite. In fact, I suspect most romantic couples may not necessarily have an HEA ending.
This is about Emma Grant, who has always believed that she was living the life of a Jane Austen heroine. She is a professor at a university who specializes in Austen, at least until her life falls apart, her husband admits to having an affair with his intern, who has also stolen credit for Emma's latest research and thus gets her kicked out of her job. She goes to England after a mysterious woman sends her a letter which hints at a spectacular discovery about Jane Austen. Emma is determined not to let herself be sentimental, and she is going to out Jane Austen in order to save her career. She has no intention of falling in love with the old boyfriend she rejected years ago, either.
I like romances in which I feel that the romance is not forced. Too often, it feels like "Mr. Right" is simply right because he is standing there, in the spot labeled "Mr. Right." I don't feel like there are other choices. (Not that I like love triangles, either.) Honestly, I don't like many romances at all because they feel about all the things that I find superficially romantic, but not romantic at all, like flowers, chocolate, and love songs. Real romance is about cleaning out the toilet together, in my opinion.
Also about the other person seeing you at your worst and helping you see how to be a little bit better. Not magical, complete transformations mind you. And not necessarily the kind of hurts that are overly dramatic. But small stuff, little hurts that are part of everyday life and real marriages, which are the real stuff of romance.
I liked this book because it felt real to me. I believed the twists and turns in the romance. More than that, I absolutely believed the Jane Austen part of the story, and that surprised me. I'm not an Austen expert, but I know enough about the academic world to be pretty skeptical. Yet the idea that there might be a secret society that had some of the letters that Jane's sister Cassandra had supposedly destroyed about Austen's real romance? I bought in completely.
Emma's dilemma about choosing to honor Jane's wishes or not was also real. OK, there were some hokey twists when it came to the end, but I still liked it. And I liked that in the end, Emma had to give up her academic position and make a new life for herself. I liked that she wasn't sure how love would fit in that new life, and that there wasn't this need to push the romance to an untimely conclusion.
Weekend with Mr. Darcy by Victoria Connelly
This is a double romance and it suffers from some of the same problems that double romances often do (one of the romances is better than the other). There is Warwick and Katherine and Jace and Robyn. Warwick and Katherine are secret pen-pals (secret to Katherine, who thinks the person she is writing to is a female writer of Regency romance called Lorna Warwick). They meet at a Jane Austen conference. Some of the best parts of this book were, for me, the descriptions of the conference. I especially loved the Undressing Mr. Darcy section, but I felt all of them were true to life, and I enjoyed the conference vicariously.
Warwick and Katherine fall in love, and predictably, the truth is revealed, Katherine feels betrayed, but Warwick humbles himself, begs for forgiveness a la Mr. Darcy and gets his second chance with her.
Jace and Robyn were a trickier romance for me. Robyn comes to the Jane Austen conference with an old boyfriend. In some ways, this made it harder for me to root for her new romance with Jace, but on the other hand, it felt real to me and it gave me a sense of choice. That is, she doesn't have only one Mr. Right to choose from. Her relationship with her old boyfriend was touching and yet not complete. I liked how he proposed to her and she said yes, then turned him down later. I liked how this mirrored Jane Austen's life.
On the other hand, there were a lot of predictable "romance" moments, so I don't know if everyone would love it.
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