Jane in June Concludes
So, it might be the end of a month devoted to Jane Austen, but that doesn't mean it's the end of all that Jane has given us. It is never to late to start reading her precious six works or a wrong time to re-read them! Austen is inspirational. That one writer could produce only six books in their lifetime and have those six books be classics, read and handed down through generations shows her enduring themes. I still have my grandmother's copies of her books from the turn of the century; and to know that we both loved these words that are still so alive even though she and Austen are gone is a bond I will never loose. Countless writers are also inspired by Austen, from Georgette Heyer to Lauren Willig, Austen lives on through those she has inspired.
As one of my friends joked when I said what book release she was looking forward to most this year, "I'm looking forward to the next Jane Austen... I hope it's this year." She does show her wicked wit, but she's not far off, with the number of Janeites producing work in the world we will get something in the vein of Jane. The one I'm most looking forward to is Lauren Willig's The Mischief of the Mistletoe. I was lucky enough to get an ARC from Dutton to celebrate Jane in style and I have a few choice words to say, you'll have to wait for a full review till the fall, right now just a teaser. The Mischief of the Mistletoe is perhaps the best book Lauren Willig has written to date. With laugh-out-loud dialogue that leaps off the pages we get to experience Regency Bath with Jane Austen as well as a gaggle of spy groupie teenagers, their new teacher and an unlikely named vegetable hero. More approachable to those not familiar with Willig's flower monikered spy ringed world, this book should appeal to the Janeite in us all, giving us crossed signals, Christmas pudding and a happy ending, just as Jane would.
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