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Archive for the ‘Austenesque novels’ Category

Dawn of the Dreadfuls: A Review and Contest

Posted in Austenesque novels, Book review, jane austen, Popular culture, tagged , , , , on March 3, 2010| 4 Comments »

Inquiring reader, Jane Austen’s World has joined many other blogs in promoting Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith, the prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  Quirk Books is offering the chance for you to win one of 50 Quirk Classics prize packs. To be eligible, each you must list where you read the review and post it to the Quirk Books site at this link. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls (Quirk Books; March 23, 2010; $12.95), by Steve Hockensmith, is an all-new work of fiction inspired by Jane Austen’s characters. My friend, Hillary Major, who reads more books than anyone I know, has graciously condescended to read and review the book.

A Dreadful Prequel, by Hillary Major

Before there was the Alamo, there was Netherfield Hall.

And who would you want by your side in a last stand of the living against the living dead but the sisters Bennet?

Set four years before Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Dawn of the Dreadfuls finds the Bennet siblings four years younger though already set in their ways: Jane is naively willing to see the best in everyone, Mary is sententious, Kitty a tagalong, and Lydia more lustily flirtatious than any eleven-year-old has a right to be. Elizabeth, however, finds herself at a crossroads when the long dormant undead choose to rise again only weeks before her coming out. Should she trade in her katana for an invitation to Mrs. Goswick’s ball? Should she content herself as the disciple of the handsome Master Hawksworth, her instructor in the deadly arts? Should she exercise her intellect by joining the Dr. Keckilpenny on his quest to re-educate the undead?

The Austen fan will be able to guess Lizzie’s decision long before the gathering zombies (that is to say, the unfortunate encroachments of certain unmentionables) make its outcome a matter of life and death.

Though Steve Hockensmith’s novel boasts only a dozen illustrations (illuminating such heartwarming scenes as an unmentionable “hump[ing] its way toward Mary like a massive, rabid inchworm”), the book is in many ways a cartoon. There’s a bumbling villain in the person of the portly and lascivious Lord Lumpley, who owns Netherfield Hall and fancies himself Hertfordshire’s version of the Prince Regent. (He also fancies Jane Bennet.) There’s a plenitude of martial arts as Mr. Bennet shares his past as a student of Shaolin and reveals that Mrs. Bennet’s flower shed was always intended to be the family dojo. Perhaps the most amusing twist of all comes when Mrs. Bennet’s lost love comes back into her life. Unfortunately, Captain Cannon finds himself rather diminished from his former glory…

Dawn of the Dreadfuls isn’t a thriller. We know the Bennet siblings will survive and go on to meet their Darcys, Binghams, and Wickhams. What, then, kept me turning the pages of this Quirk Classic? Could it be that (like Elizabeth, who defiantly uses the “z-word” even in company), I was simply fascinated by Hockensmith’s embrace of the vulgar, drawn in to walk the fine the line between the absurd and obscene?

Steve Hockensmith as a Dreadful

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, the third Quirk Classic, comes with illustrations from artist Patrick Arrasmith.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls will be available for purchase on March 23, 2010
Published by Quirk Books
Paperback, $12.95, 288 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59474-454-9

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Regency Books in My Review Queue

Posted in Austenesque novels, Book review, jane austen, Jane Austen Novels, Jane Austen's World, Movie review, Popular culture, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 5, 2010| 7 Comments »

Four recently released books about Jane Austen or the Regency period are in my review queue. The weather man forecasts snow, so I can’t think of a better way of spending the weekend than to curl up in front of a cheery fire and read these new additions to my library shelves:

Bellfield Hall: A Dido Kent Mystery by Anna Dean ( released on February 2nd).

It is 1805, and Miss Kent is summoned to her niece’s country manor to comfort her afte her fiance, Richard Montague, disappears.  Worse, the body of an unnown young woman is found on the grounds. As Dido works to resolve the mystery, she falls in love. With observations like these, who cannot like Dido Kent or look forward to reading the book?:

Mr. William Lomax …has a very fine profile. He has also the very great recommendation of being a widower. And, all in all, I am rather sorry that I gave up the business of falling in love some years ago.

The Misses Harris are too much engaged in being accomplished to take a great deal of exercise and their mother must save all her breath to gossip with.

About the author: Anna Dean set about crafting stories at the age of five under the impression that everyone was taught to write in order to pen books. By the time she discovered her mistake, the habit was too deeply ingrained to give up. She resides in the Lake District of England.

You may order the book directly from the publisher. For the time being I am boycotting Amazon.com, and I highly recommend that you also eschew this bombastic pricing bully.

Jane Austen: Christian Encounters by Peter Leithart (to be released on March 2nd, 2010).

Some may know Jane Austen simply as the English novelist whose books are required reading in high school and college. Perhaps it wasn’t until the BBC’s extremely successful TV miniseries of Pride and Prejudice or Emma Thompson’s film Sense and Sensibility that many became entranced. Now younger readers are flocking to Austen with a unique twist in the bestselling Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance, by Seth Grahame-Smith. In this Christian Encounters biography, fans of Jane Austen will discover the Christian faith that was in the weft and weave of her character and how it influenced her writing and her life.

Order the book from the publisher, Thomas Nelson.

Mansfield Park and Mummies by Jane Austen and Vera Nazarian

Oh, yes, another Jane Austen mashup. But with writing like this, how can one resist a look-see?:

In the morning the ball was over, the mummies nowhere in sight, and much of the cleanup still to come And the breakfast was soon over too. All throughout, everyone ate in due solemnity, Sir Thomas decidedly troubled and deep in thought. Mr. Crawford impeccable, Edmund grim and absentminded, and only William darting quick happy looks at Fanny and whispering repeatedly, “Best ….ball….ever!”

The website for this book says it all: Spinsterhood or Mummification!
Ancient Egypt infiltrates Regency England in this elegant, hilarious, witty, insane, and unexpectedly romantic monster parody of Jane Austen’s classic novel.

Our gentle yet indomitable heroine Fanny Price must hold steadfast not only against the seductive charms of Henry Crawford but also an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh!

Meanwhile, the indubitably handsome and kind hero Edmund attempts Exorcisms… Miss Crawford vamps out… Aunt Norris channels her inner werewolf… The Mummy-mesmerized Lady Bertram collects Egyptian artifacts…

Order the book from the publisher, Norilana Books

Last but not least is the prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies published by Quirk Books. Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith ( coming out in March!)

The story opens with the Bennets attending a funeral for a local shopkeeper, who — before the burial — suddenly sits up in his coffin. Everyone in the crowd is shocked except Mr. Bennet, who has some knowledge of zombie incursions in other parts of England. Realizing that the scourge has come to their village, he decides to protect his daughters by having them schooled in the martial arts — nunchuks, katana swords, and the like…

Look for a special promotion of the book on March 3.

Order the book from the publisher, Quirk Books

More reviews on this blog:

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Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart, by Beth Pattillo: A Review

Posted in Austenesque novels, Book review, jane austen, Jane Austen Novels, Popular culture, tagged , , on January 29, 2010| 7 Comments »

Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart by Beth Pattillo contains the same successful ingredients as her first book, Jane Austen Ruined My Life. A young woman, Claire Peterson, leaves a man (her boyfriend) and family behind in the U.S. and travels to Oxford to join a Jane Austen study group. She arrives at the last minute to present her sister’s paper on Pride and Prejudice, only to meet a gorgeous, drop dead handsome man in the mold of Mr. Darcy. The moment she meets James, Claire’s heart instantly goes pitter patter. Better yet, he expresses as much interest in her as she in him. But this is not the end of Claire’s good fortune. She also meets a ditzy older woman named Harriet Dalrymple, who inexplicably entrusts her with yellowing bits of paper containing the original version of Pride and Prejudice, titled First Impressions. Claire is in 7th heaven when she realizes what a treasure she’s been reading. She even shares a portion of the manuscript with Martin, a Jane Austen scholar, who confirms its authenticity. But Claire is puzzled. Why of all people was she chosen to read the book? Why is it being kept from the public? And who rifled her room, tearing it upside down? Did someone know about the manuscript, and if so, how did they know Claire had it? The Formidables, the secret group that guards Jane Austen’s literary reputation, much as her sister Cassandra had done, once again make an appearance. Like the ex-husband in Jane Austen Ruined My Life, the Claire’s boyfriend travels to England, only he is kind and long-suffering, not diabolical, and his presence in Oxford forces Claire to choose between him and James.

A recent review about Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart proclaimed, “These books will be loved by fans of Jane Austen and true romance fans alike.” Well, yes and no. My sense is that the reader who has only seen Jane Austen films (and not read her novels) and who is unfamiliar with Beth Pattillo’s first book, will like this book tremendously. Beth Patillo’s writing style is likable and breezy, and the plot of the book is just interesting enough to hold your attention.

But I think that many Jane Austen fans will be as put off as I was by the book’s main premise, which is that the original plot of Pride and Prejudice was drastically different from the final novel. In Ms Pattillo’s version, Mr. Bennet has died, leaving Mrs. Bennet in the horrific, nearly penniless situation she feared. Elizabeth Bennet must leave her family and make her way in the world as the companion of Anne de Bourgh. While living at Rosings, she meets Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Darcy …

Ms. Pattillo made several decisions in writing this book that I found jarring. First, she makes the assumption that Jane Austen’s original plot of Pride and Prejudice was nothing like the final product. Throughout her book, Miss Pattillo included large portions of the so-called original manuscript to whet our appetites. While she can write well, she is no Jane Austen, and these excerpts make that fact painfully clear.  The excerpts also did not pique my interest, for the story seemed tepid and without Jane’s sparkling wit and biting humor. Perhaps this was Ms. Pattillo’s intention, for how else could she rationalize that Jane Austen would completely revamp her first novel? Oh, there was a hasty explanation at the end of Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart, but the comparison of Claire’s growth as a woman to Jane’s own growth as a woman and author seemed tenuous at best.

First Impressions was written in 1796-1797, probably in epistolary form. While no copy of that lengthy and bloated first draft remains, it was so popular within the Austen family, that the family repeatedly requested Jane to read it to them. They LOVED the story! A niece heard her Aunts Jane and Cassandra giggle as they went over its pages, and Jane Austen’s father thought so highly of the book that he tried to get it published in 1797, but he was unsuccessful. Perhaps the book was too long, for Jane did cut the book’s length and revise it in 1812 before its publication in 1813. Had Ms. Pattillo presented us with the edited out portions, let’s say (and provided us with more back story regarding Mr and Mrs Bennet or with more details about how Mr. Darcy contrived to arrange the marriage between Mr. Wickham and Lydia) I might have bought into her book’s premise.

Because the plot of Mr. Darcy Stole My Heart so closely follows the outline of Jane Austen Ruined My Life, this second novel has a formulaic feel to it. Despite my own reservations, I suspect that many readers will like this book, for it does provide several hours of light and frothy escape fiction. There is no violence, as so many books feel the need to include these days, and there are no weird or distasteful plot developments. I would hope that Ms. Pattillo, if she plans to write a third book that involves The Formidables and their guardianship of Jane Austen’s literary reputation, will deviate just a little from her now tried and true formula and dare to be different, just like the author she so ardently admires.

I give this book 1 ½ regency fans (out of 3)

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Jane Austen VS. Match.Com

Posted in Austenesque novels, jane austen, Jane Austen Novels, Jane Austen's World, Popular culture, tagged , on December 30, 2009| 3 Comments »

Gentle Reader: This is Christine Stewart’s fourth post for this blog. Christine has embarked on a year-long journey on a Sense and Sensibility inspired project that she chronicles on Embarking on a Course of Study. During the recent snow storm on the East Coast, she made good use of her time by completing 100 pages of The Mysteries of Udolpho.

Okay, here’s my clever (I hope) new idea for the new year: dating a la Jane Austen via match.com.

What better way to test out the preferred behavior, character, and values of our favorite heroines (for me: Lizzy, Elinor, and Anne) that captivated their men? And what better arena than one of (or the) largest dating site on the Internet – arguably the biggest ballroom in the world?!

Let’s look at the necessary criteria:

  • I’m single and available – check.
  • I’m armed with an arsenal of advice Jane Austen style (see book list on my site) – check.
  • I’ve got a healthy sense of humor – check.
  • I’m willing to make a fool of myself – check.
  • I’m willing to learn something – check, check, check!

That’s what this blog is all about!

Though I consider myself a great catch, I’m an interesting (odd?) mix of come hither and cautious, which makes for some contradiction. I can flirt, but at heart I want someone grounded, centered, not necessarily old-fashioned, but someone with integrity and good manners to go along with his rockin’ sense of humor, his smarts, creativity, good heart, and sex appeal. I’ve really misjudged men in the past and accepted less than I deserved, sometimes ignoring my intuition, which was yelling Run! in favor of being with someone rather than being alone. Settling for Mr. Right Now instead of Mr. Right Always. Good grief – who hasn’t, right? It’s all part of growing up.
But still – ouch.

I took a break for a few years – focused on career and writing, friends, buying a house, and now this blog, but this is too good of an opportunity to pass up.
If you’d like to hear more and see the books I’m using (and take this challenge along with me), go to my site, Embarking on a Course of Study.

In a previous post a week or so ago, you can find a  link to listen to and/or download the entire ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho.’ Some readers of the sections are better than others. But it’s a delicious treat regardless.

I’m still doing my regular course of reading per Marianne Dashwood’s possible list. It’s sometimes slow going as there’s so much (!), but worth it.

Happy New Year!

—
Chris Stewart
http://www.embarkingonacourseofstudy.com
(A Sense and Sensibility inspired project)
http://www.pw.org/content/christine_stewart

Christine’s other posts for this blog:

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Holiday Reading: Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart and Jane Austen as Sleuth

Posted in Austenesque novels, Book review, jane austen, Jane Austen Novels, tagged , , , , on December 26, 2009| 5 Comments »

I brought several books to read during my holiday hiatus. The first will come out in February, the second is a popular murder mystery series by Stephanie Barron starring Jane Austen as sleuth.

Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart is the second mystery book by Beth Patillo, author of the popular Jane Austen Ruined My Life. The book is based along similar lines as the first novel. A young woman without a job and with a neglectful boyfriend travels to Oxford to attend a Jane Austen seminar. The adventure begins when Jane Austen’s lost manuscript of First Impressions is found. The reader once again runs across The Formidables, who played such a prominent role in Ms. Padillo’s first book. I have finished the second chapter and cannot wait to finish the book. Click here to read my review.

My other choice for the holidays is Stephanie Barron’s Jane and the Genius of the Place, the first book in a long, successful mystery series. I have started to read this first book on four occasions and never quite managed to get into the story. I am determined to read the book front to back this time to learn why two of my friends are die-hard fans.

Today is Boxing Day in England. May you and yours enjoy the lingering effects of this lovely holiday season.

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