Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, by Laurie Viera Rigler

A follow-up to Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, which I have not read, Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict finds Jane Mansfield, injured in a riding accident in 1813 England, waking up in the body of Courtney Stone, a 21st-century inhabitant of Los Angeles. Both Courtney and Jane are Austen fans who have recently been disappointed in love. Jane speaks and thinks in the author's idea of regency style (likely based on her own reading of Austen--her bio describes her as a "life member of the Jane Austen Society of North America"), and her "fish out of water" experiences in LA are sometimes amusing. The message Rigler seems to be conveying--that women may have more choices than they did 200 years ago but their hopes and dreams are pretty much the same--is simplistic and, at least to this non-reader of sci-fi, her explanation of the time travel aspects of the story is lame.

So, if you want a good book about time travel, read The Time Traveler's Wife. If you want something Austenian, rereading Austen would be more rewarding.

Favorite passage: None