Review: Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale

Midnight in Austenland
By: Shannon Hale
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 978-1-60819-625-8

About the book:

When Charlotte Kinder decides to treat herself to a vacation, she happily leaves behind all the complications of life in America and heads to Austenland. The country manor Pembrook Park offers an immersive Jane Austen experience, complete with gentleman actors to provide just a suggestion of romance.

Everyone at Pembrook Park is playing a role, but increasingly, Charlotte can't be sure where roles end and reality begins. And as the parlor games turn a little bit menacing, she finds she needs more than a good corset to keep herself safe. Is the brooding Mr. Mallery as sinister as he seems? What is Miss Gardenside's mysterious ailment? Coult that have been a real dead body in the attic? And could the stirrings in Charlotte's heart be a sign of real-life love?

In this follow-up to reader favorite Austenland, Shannon Hale gives us a fiesty new heroine, fresh and frightening plot twists, and the possibility of romance that might just go beyond the bounds of Austen fantasy. It's always a pleasure to visit Austenland.

Review:

Charlotte wasn't born to be a heroine. She was a nice child who grew into a nice woman who married a nice man and had two nice kids -- in other words, she was the proud possessor of a nice, safe life. That safety net, the surety of what has always been, is traded for the fear of the unknown when her nice husband drops a bombshell -- he's in love with another and wants a divorce. Cast adrift in the sea of newly-acquired singleness, Charlotte is bereft of all anchors, uncertain of the future and most importantly, of who she is stripped of the identity marriage provided. In the throes of emotional numbness Charlotte discovers the works of Jane Austen, and a most unorthodox, unconventional idea takes root -- she'll vacation in Austenland. Living in Regency England for two weeks, free to assume a new identity, Charlotte can perhaps rediscover the heartbeat of her life, her sense of self and worth. But her desire for a simple vacation turns into much more when Charlotte arrives and discovers the manor house and its inhabitants hide their own share of secrets beneath the veneer of 19th-century respectability. With death stalking Pembrook Park's stately doors, Charlotte must untangle the blurry threads of reality vs. fantasy before she becomes a victim, and along the way just might discover that while the life she knew has ended, the life she didn't dare dream of is waiting in the wings -- if she can find the courage to cross the threshold into the unknown.

Austenland, Hale's first tribute to Janeites, is one of my favorite Austen pastiches, a delightful, frothy confection of a novel. It speaks to the secret wish I'm convinced most Austen fans, if they're honest with themselves, has entertained or exclaimed when revisiting a novel or watching one of the many film adaptations -- the desire to to live our very own Austenesque romance. Austenland is the perfect wish-fulfillment vehicle, a loving send-up created by an Austen fan as a gift to her peers, peppered with inside jokes, references, and character types that fans of the books and films are sure to appreciate. Austenland's only drawback was that it was too short -- and time has proven that Hale's first foray into the realms of Austen-flavored chick-lit was merely a dry run for her return to the delightful conceit that is Austenland. Midnight in Austenland takes everything that worked about its predecessor -- the charm, the humor, a dash of romance -- and builds on it, delivering a more substantial, well-developed, and funnier homage to Jane Austen and her inimitable fans.

Taking most of her cues from Northanger Abbey, Hale's return to the halls of Austenland is shaded with darker tones, the suggestion of menace, the hint of danger in keeping with the storyline's Gothic inspiration. Coupled with Charlotte's hilarious dialogue with her Inner Thoughts, I have to think that Hale has crafted a story and a heroine, both of which Catherine Morland would heartily approve. I loved how Hale interspersed the narrative with brief scenes from Charlotte's past, giving welcome insight into the circumstances that made her the woman she is today, and underscoring the critical importance of what she hopes to achieve at Austenland. Hale isn't just about escaping reality either; rather, through her unconventional foray into Regency England Charlotte transforms herself, recognizing and embracing her unique strengths and characteristics and in doing so becomes her best self.

The romance Charlotte discovers at Austenland is to DIE for. Without revealing too much, Charlotte's Mr. Tilney, if you will, is positively swoon-worthy. :) The sweet romance Hale is known for penning is spiced with a period-flavored sizzle that any fan of Austen's films is sure to appreciate. With greater character development (particularly welcome as regards some of the Austenland cast members and fellow vacationers!) and a healthy dose of mystery and peril, Midnight in Austenland is a winner. I desperately hope that Hale will one day favor readers with third return to Austenland's halls -- this brand of escapism never gets old.

Austenland MOVIE NEWS!

Thanks to Charleybrown for posting about this - I had NO IDEA Shannon Hale's Austenland was being made into a film! Via ComingSoon.net, the cast includes Keri Russell, JJ Feild (SQUEE!!!), James Callis, Jennifer Coolidge, and Jane Seymour.

I cannot WAIT. :)

Review: Austenland by Shannon Hale

Austenland
By: Shannon Hale
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 9781596912854

About the book:

For the woman with everything except a Mr. Darcy of her own,

An invitation to

AUSTENLAND

Pembrook Park, Kent, England. Enter our doors as a house guest come to stay three weeks, enjoying the country manners and hospitality – a tea visit, a dance or two, a turn in the park, an unexpected meeting with a certain gentleman, all culminating with a ball and perhaps something more…

Here, the Prince Regent still rules a carefree England. No scripts. No written endings. A holiday no one else can offer you.

Review:

Jane Hayes is just your average, thirty-something, single New Yorker except for one little thing...her obsession with Pride and Prejudice, particularly with Mr. Darcy (as portrayed by Colin Firth, of course!), is ruining her life. No living, breathing, real man can compare to Darcy, the epitome of Regency-era male perfection. And so a succession of relationships crashes and burns, and Jane secretly watches her P&P DVDs, and then hides them like contraband from others when they visit her apartment, just in case they should see them and guess at her grand obsession (and correspondingly pathetic lack of a love life).

Then Jane's Aunt Carolyn dies and leaves her an unexpected and intriguing bequest in her will -- a three week stay at a role-playing resort in England called Austenland, a complete immersion into Austen's world for obsessed fanatics such as Jane. Seizing the opportunity to lay her Darcy fantasies to rest forever so she can live for something real, Jane accepts the trip and and heads to Austenland to live as Miss Jane Erstwhile, circa 1816, for three weeks. Jane's resolve to put her Darcy-esque fantasies behind her forever is sorely tested when confronted with the reality of the handsome, cravat-wearing gentlemen who populate Austenland and pay court to female guests. In the ultimate Austen-lover's fantasy world, can Jane find something real?

I so enjoyed this book. Hale's novel is a witty, clever send-up of the rabid Austen / Darcy-mania that just about every woman I know can relate to in some degree. I would have liked to have seen the novel written in first-person from Jane's point-of-view -- the concept just screams "chick lit" and a change from third- to first-person would have enabled Hale to give greater insight and depth to Jane's character and smoothed out the narrative a bit. The supporting cast of characters that people Austenland is fabulous, though slightly underdeveloped. At a mere 194 pages, Austenland is an extremely short, fast read that begs to be about 100 pages longer (at least). I loved the world Hale created, and I loved Jane (I can SO relate to her Darcy-mania!) and a certain someone that she meets at Austenland -- I won't spoil the surprise for those of you reading the review by naming names, even though when you read the novel Jane's real-life "Darcy" is telegraphed VERY early on. However, this lack of suspense doesn't detract from the sheer enjoyability of the read. I just wish there was more of it. Primarily known as a young adult fantasy author (The Goose Girl, Enna Burning) Hale is a promising voice in funny, clever, chick-lit style novels and I look forward to reading more from her. Austenland is a perfect summer read -- what it may lack in substance it more than compensates for in wit and invention.

***

Another review from the archives, this time from 2007. I really ought to re-read this book - it's the perfect escapist read - fun, frothy, and can we say wish-fulfillment?! :) If you haven't read this, now's the perfect time to check it out, since Shannon Hale's next book is a sequel of sorts - Midnight in Austenland is due to release most likely in 2012.