Author: Rachel Givney
Narrator: Billie Fulford Brown
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: October 2020
Genre: Contemporary Romance / Time Travel Romance
Buy the Book: Amazon | BN | Audible
Description: A charming, romantic debut novel in which Jane Austen, heralded author, ends up time-traveling almost 200 years in the future. There she finds the love she's written about and the destiny she's dreamed of...but is it worth her legacy?
Bath, England, 1803. At 28, Jane Austen prefers walking and reading to balls and assemblies; she dreams of someday publishing her carefully crafted stories. Already on the shelf and in grave danger of becoming a spinster, Jane goes searching for a radical solution—and as a result, seemingly by accident, time-travels. She lands in...
Bath, England, present day. The film set of Northanger Abbey. Sofia Wentworth is a Hollywood actress starring in a new period film, an attempt to reinvent her flagging career and, secretly, an attempt to reinvent her failing marriage. When Sofia meets Jane, she marvels at the young actress who can’t seem to "break character," even off set. And Jane—acquainting herself with the horseless steel carriages and seriously shocking fashion of the twenty-first century— meets Sofia, a woman unlike anyone she’s ever met before. Then she meets Fred, Sofia’s brother, who has the audacity to be handsome, clever, and kind-hearted.
What happens when Jane, against her better judgement, falls in love with Fred? And when Sofia learns the truth about her new friend Jane? And worst of all, if Jane stays with Fred, will she ever achieve her dream, the one she's now seen come true?
My Thoughts: As exciting as the concept of time travel sounds, the consequences of altering the past and thereby changing the future are just too horrific to contemplate. The world would suffer an immense loss if Jane Austen never wrote and was never published. I thoroughly enjoyed this cautionary tale of how this could happen should Jane Austen find herself over two hundred years in the future.
The world knows the biography of Jane Austen, a woman born way before her time in a period where women had no rights, no voice and earning an independent wage was unthinkable for any woman of genteel or moral breeding. In Jane’s day, women not only were expected to marry (and marry well), but anything beyond that and society was scandalized. Unfortunately for Jane, at nearly thirty years of age and no marriage prospects on the horizon, despairs of ever finding a husband and having a family. She fears she will become a spinster and burden to her family. When Jane is given an opportunity to find her one true love, the last thing she expects is to travel over two hundred years into the future.
Unfortunately for Jane, she has traveled into the future before she drafts her novels so the longer she stays in the present, the more risk she faces of erasing her work and, ultimately, her legacy from history.
I loved this story and seeing the world through Jane’s eyes. Her shock at the changes she sees in Bath were realistic and I felt immense empathy for her as she tries to navigate modern London on the tube and escalators attempting to find a way back home. Her rapt fascination with all of the modern conveniences surrounding her was refreshing to behold. I also loved the supporting characters of Sofia Wentworth and her brother, Fred. Their willingness to help a stranger and their acceptance of Jane’s circumstances and her true identity were heartwarming.
This is my first time reading this author, I really loved her voice, and her description of Jane felt accurate. I am now deeply interested in reading more from this author as well as Jane Austen’s books. I paired the reading of this book with the audiobook format. The audio performance by Billie Fulford Brown was exceptional and gave me a lot of insight into Jane’s character and personality as well as the dilemma she faces with the difficult decision she has to make of whether she should stay or return to 1803.
My Final Verdict: In theory, time travel sounds exciting but the reality is dangerous and should only ever be attempted with great caution. I highly recommend this story to fans of time travel, who I believe will thoroughly enjoy this story as well as fans of Jane Austen and readers of historical and contemporary romance.
Thank you to the publisher, HarperCollins, who provided an advance reader copy of this book via NetGalley.
No comments:
Post a Comment