The Jane Austen Project
A Novel
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4.3 • 58 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“The most brilliant Austen-adjacent book on the market. . . . Flynn’s style makes this a quick, fun read, and since the story is Jane-related there’s even a romantic subplot.” — Vulture
“What lover of literature hasn’t dreamed of going back in time to meet Jane Austen? . . . . Kathleen A. Flynn brings this dream to life, creating a vivid portrait of Regency England in all its glory and squalor.” —Lauren Belfer, author of After the Fire and A Fierce Radiance
Perfect for fans of Jane Austen, this engrossing novel offers an unusual twist on the legacy of one of the world's most celebrated and beloved authors: two researchers from the future are sent back in time to meet Jane and recover a suspected unpublished novel.
London, 1815: Two travelers—Rachel Katzman and Liam Finucane—arrive in a field in rural England, disheveled and weighed down with hidden money. Turned away at a nearby inn, they are forced to travel by coach all night to London. They are not what they seem, but rather colleagues who have come back in time from a technologically advanced future, posing as wealthy West Indies planters—a doctor and his spinster sister. While Rachel and Liam aren’t the first team from the future to “go back,” their mission is by far the most audacious: meet, befriend, and steal from Jane Austen herself.
Carefully selected and rigorously trained by The Royal Institute for Special Topics in Physics, disaster-relief doctor Rachel and actor-turned-scholar Liam have little in common besides the extraordinary circumstances they find themselves in. Circumstances that call for Rachel to stifle her independent nature and let Liam take the lead as they infiltrate Austen’s circle via her favorite brother, Henry.
But diagnosing Jane’s fatal illness and obtaining an unpublished novel hinted at in her letters pose enough of a challenge without the continuous convolutions of living a lie. While her friendship with Jane deepens and her relationship with Liam grows complicated, Rachel fights to reconcile the woman she is with the proper lady nineteenth-century society expects her to be. As their portal to the future prepares to close, Rachel and Liam struggle with their directive to leave history intact and exactly as they found it. . . however heartbreaking that may prove.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Flynn's debut, a time-travel romance, scholars in the near future find a letter indicating that Jane Austen finished and then destroyed her partial novel The Watsons, instead of never having finished it. Dr. Rachel Katzman and her colleague, Liam Finucane, are sent to live in the year 1815, hoping to get into the Austens' social circle and use that access to obtain a complete copy of the manuscript. However, Rachel's flirtation with Austen's brother, Henry, proves too effective, especially when she begins to fall in love with Liam. Though the novel is well-researched, rich in period detail, and convincing in its literary analysis, Flynn spends more energy on the conventional romance plot than on the side effects and consequences of time travel, to the book's detriment.
Customer Reviews
Intelligent and Captivating
I started reading this book because I broke my back and had already watched TV and played on my phone as much as I could stand. The concept was baffling- and frankly absurd to me. Time traveling back to see Jane Austen? But the reviews made me give it a shot and wow, am I glad I did. This is an EXCELLENT read. The authors prose, her clear literary knowledge of both the subject and related authors, as well as convincing articulation of time travel variables made this story not just conceivable, but respectable and enthralling. In a world filled with terrible novels, this book is truly phenomenal. Read it. You will be enlightened and gratified.