In 2009 I read and reviewed Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler which I enjoyed very much. Read my review here. Now we have Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, a parallel story line to the first book.
I do have reservations about the Jane Austen Prequel and Sequel Industry, but when the stories are as well done as these two are then I put them to one side. Laurie Viera Rigler's books are not reworkings of any of the Austen canon, rather two stories about Courtney and Jane who love Austen and find they have changed places. In the first story Courtney, from Los Angeles, wakes up and finds that she has been transported back into the time of Miss Austen and her bewilderment when she realises that she is stuck and cannot get back and her coming to terms with the mores and attitudes of the day make for amusing reading.
In Rude Awakenings we have Jane waking up and finding that she is now living Courtney's Life in modern day USA complete with laptops, mobile phones, cars, trains and all the day to day technology which we all take for granted. Apparently Courtney/Jane cracked her head in a swimming pool so all her friends think that her memory loss and strange way of speaking will disappear and she will be back to normal in no time. There is no sign of it happening and as she hasn't the faintest idea that she dumped her fiance just before she was due to be married (see review of earlier book) or that she has a job of work to go to, they take her along to a psychiatrist to see if anything can be done.
As with the first book, it is clear that both Courtney and Jane had unhappy dealings with their respective men in their lives and this seems to have triggered off the subconscious wish for something different, something better. I mentioned in my review of Confessions a meeting Courtney had with Jane Austen in Bath, in Awakenings Jane spots all the Austen books in Courtney's bookcase and is delighted that there are more to read as they had not yet been published in her other life. She spends happy days curled up reading them all totally oblivious to the fact that this odd machine is bleeping and ringing and decides to ignore it until her frantic friends turn up on the doorstep wanting to know what has happened to her and why she has not answered the phone or responded to their texts.
I am not going to give away the ending as the same dilemma arises in both books - do Courtney/Jane decide to stay where they are and seek happiness in their new lives or will they find a way back to their own time? As with the first title, this was a hugely enjoyable read and though it was fun to find out what happened to Jane after reading Confessions, I was left wondering at the end, which would be more difficult - Courtney going back in time and coping or Jane waking up in modern day America.
What do you think?
