My Jane Austen Summer is debut author Cindy Jones' labour of love which I got to know through Austen Authors blog as she is a regular blogger there. I have been following her publication journey several months back and I am thrilled to be finally able to read her first novel after ten years of hard work, rejections and revisions.
The story is about Lily Berry, a twenty-six-year-old Texas woman who is on a downhill following the death of her mother due to illness, the sacking from her job as human resource personnel because her boss caught her reading Northanger Abbey and getting dumped by her boyfriend, Martin. On top of that, her life is turned upside down soon after her mother's funeral when Sue, her father's new and younger girlfriend, decided to move in to live with her father. She endured all the grief, suffering and anguish alone without getting the required professional help advised by her older sister, Karen by reading all of Jane Austen's novels and the juvenilia. It gets worse when she stalks her ex-boyfriend for over a month since the break up and on the home front, Sue decides to throw all her mother's belongings and with it, Lily's cherish moments with her dear mother. When an opportunity arises to travel to England and participate in a Jane Austen literary festival for the whole of summer, she decides to leave everything behind and embark on a new adventure. Lily's string of bad lucks follow her to England where she learns that she cannot escape from her problems as it will catch up with her sooner or later.
Literature Live, the literary festival which she joins, is held annually at Newton Priors, the seat of the Baron of Weston in the village of Hedingham. One of the highlights of the festival is a re-enactment of Mansfield Park where professional actors are hired to stage an adaptation based on a script written by fellow participant, Omar and supervised by Magda, both of whom are English teachers. Lily aspires to act in the production and be a part of this camaraderie among actors who are devoted to their art although she never had training in this field. However, due to her declaration that she loves Fanny Price, the protagonist in Mansfield Park, she is sidelined by Magda who runs the show. To add to her misery, Elizabeth Banks (Bets), the woman who she was certain would not show up so that she could take her place in the play, appeared at the official welcoming ceremony of actors and volunteers to the festival. She is thus assigned to be roommate to Bets, a non-Janeite and keep an eye on her especially when Bets takes her things without asking for permission. She decides to stick around in the hope that Bets will drop out of her acting role by helping in an administrative capacity like writing a business plan and organising a tea party for tourists.
In all of these troubles, she turns to her imaginary friend, none other than Jane Austen herself. Besides this, she meets a host of interesting people that will shape her character from Vera, Omar, Magda, Nigel, Archie Porter, Sixby Godwin, Randolph Lockwood (or Lord Weston) to the love of her life, Willis Somerford, a deacon in the Anglican Church. Her perspective changes through sharing her family problems and personal failings with him and she feels that she could finally connect with someone. Unfortunately, Willis hides a secret that would destroy her chance of happiness with him. How will it all end for Lily after the summer is over? Will she come into her own and defend herself like Fanny Price even though the odds are overwhelming? Will she repeat her mistakes or learn something new about herself through interacting with different people? If you want to know, read My Jane Austen Summer to find out.
After reading the first few chapters, I admit that I find Lily's character unlikeable. Don't get me wrong, I do sympathise with her plight but she seemed stuck in the past and do not want to move on with her life. When she meets Willis, the story begins to pick up and I wanted to know what happened next. I like how Cindy portrays Lily's story and her transition to maturity through her friendship with Omar and Willis. Some of the themes in Mansfield Park are present as well especially the adultery issue. We see Magda and Archie having an open affair and her father's affair with Sue which went on for years. We hear both sides of the argument between Austen scholars about the Fanny Wars (whether Fanny is insipid or not) and the brilliant performance for the follies put on by Lily, Sixby and Nikki at Founder's Night.
This is the second Austenesque novel I read featuring Jane Austen as a friend to the protagonist and sets in modern times. Unlike According to Jane, Jane is silent and never speak out to Lily but display her feelings through her actions of taking notes, making a list of things and observing Lily. I enjoyed dwelling into Lily's thoughts in relation to her Jane, repeatedly referred to as My Jane Austen. On another note, I like Cindy's attempt in referencing Lily's situation with quotes from literature heavyweights notably from Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and War and Peace, two novels that I have started but have not completed.
I have only one quibble with the plot. I understand that it is quite normal to depict love scenes in fiction and have no problem with that. In fact I have read several novels which are more racy than this. What I could not get over is Willis engaging in this act before marriage although I am not sure whether he broke his vow due to my insufficient knowledge of the Anglican clergy rules. But after pouring it over in my mind, I could forgive this hole in the plot as it made Lily more vulnerable and their relationship uncertain.
As a conclusion, I find this novel to be entertaining and diverting. I felt the ending is appropriate for the moment as it shows Lily's emotional growth and progression to end her cycle of despair. I would like to commend Cindy for her effort in tackling a novel that is not popular with the masses compared to the influx of Pride & Prejudice-inspired books in the market. I hope that she would be able to write more Austenesque para-literature in future. As an aside, I love the floral art cover designed for this novel.
This is my eighteenth book review for The Book Buff's Jane Austen is My Homegirl Reading Challenge.
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