Authors Write for the Love of Jane Austen
by Deirdre Donohue
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, Laurie Viera Rigler. Dutton, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-525-95040-0
After
discovering that her fiancé betrayed her with the woman designing their
wedding cake, a devastated Courtney Stone wakes up not in Los Angeles but in
a four-poster bed in 1813 England. A devotee of all things Austen, she now
discovers the reality of life in Regency England: rampant body odor, sexual
and class repression and a style of medical care involving bloodletting.
With a plot in two different centuries, Addict is a bit disjointed, but
Rigler does a perceptive job in contrasting the different eras. Despite the
smells, little in Courtney's current lifestyle — including most of the men —
can compete with the erotic charge of dancing in a candlelit ballroom.