Writing Jane Austen: Book Review

Rating: ★★★★★/★★★★★

This is my first foray into reading Elizabeth Aston's books. Prior to publishing this book, she is the author of six sequels devoted to Mr. and Mrs. Darcy's family life. As you may know, Mr. Darcy and Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy née Bennet is Jane Austen's creations in Pride & Prejudice. However, Ms Aston has ventured out of her usual comfort zone to produce a modern fiction.

The story is about Dr. Georgina Jackson, an American writer living in London. Currently, she is writing a second novel and part-time pursuing her research. She has successfully published a critically acclaimed debut novel,  Magdalene Crib but hardly profitable. After her success in which she won a literary award, she could not reproduce the same quality in her second novel and stuck finishing only the first chapter.

One day, she received an urgent email and telephone call from her agent, Livia Harkness requesting her presence at her office. She is almost certain that it would be bad news. However, it turns out that an unfinished manuscript from a major 19th century author was recently discovered and Georgina was tasked to complete the manuscript in three months time. However reluctant she was to agree to this, what was more disturbing to her is the manuscript was proven to be written by Jane Austen. Secretly, Georgina has never read any of Miss Austen's six novels but she did not acknowledge this fact to anyone for fear of embarrassment except to her landlord Henry Lefroy, his teenage sister, Maud and Anna Bednarska, the Polish housekeeper. Thus, begin a journey of self-discovery, research trips and a bit of romance thrown in with hilarious and unexpected consequences.

Although the protagonist was portrayed as very un-Austenish in the beginning and prefer to write dark, tragic and romantic books à la Brontë novels, she persevered and completed her task though with a little twist at the end. Georgina also has an endless resource and close friends that she can count on giving moral support. Henry, Maud and Anna are very knowledgeable about all things related to Jane Austen and encourage her not to give up her writing project and not to flee back to America instead. You can rely on the three of them to keep the annoying and obnoxious Livia and the equally loathsome publisher at bay from disturbing Georgina with their constant threats and harassments.

I could relate to her struggles as I have been in a difficult albeit not similar situation before. Just like me, she procrastinated her work until she was force to do some serious research by reading all six novels of Jane Austen in one go. This results in her becoming totally enthusiastic about Austen's oeuvre. It was such a joy reading this novel because Ms Aston successfully engage the reader to immerse themselves into the plot. Furthermore, the research trips Georgina takes alone or with Henry and Maud especially to Bath and Chawton are wonderfully described and makes me plan to visit those places someday. The way the plot moves in Bath makes me feel as though I am with Georgina as she embarked on visiting important places centered upon Austen's popularity.

Ms Aston definitely writes with appreciation and great respect for Austen by including literary references to Jane Austen's novels and characters. As an example, I find that Anna and Henry's cousin resemble Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley of Pride & Prejudice respectively where both of them fall in love. Besides that, she occasionally takes jabs at the Austen industry which is most prevalent in Georgina's trip to Bath and Lacock.

This is my second review for the Everything Austen II challenge hosted by Stephanie's Written Word. In actual fact, I finish reading this book early last month but was not inspired to write the review yet. I'm glad that I have a chance to finally put pen into paper and complete this task as part of the challenge.


Besides this challenge, this is also my second review for Jane Austen is My Homegirl Reading Challenge hosted by The Book Buff which I join recently. To know more of this challenge, please refer to my previous post.