Announcing: Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, by Laurie Viera Rigler!

GREAT NEWS FOR JANEITES EVERYWHERE!

While snooping about on Amazon.com tonight, I had a wonderful surprise when I discovered that the title of Laurie Viera Rigler’s sequel/parallel story to her popular Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict would be Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict. I immediately wrote to Laurie who is traveling in Tennessee and confimred my discovery sharing my excitement and enthusiasm for her new novel. Imagine my delight when I found the cover posted on her agent’s web site. Hurrah! Isn’t it beautiful? Here is the blurb from Laurie’s literary agent, Marly Rusoff & Associates, Inc.

RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT by Laurie Viera Rigler, Publisher Dutton, June 2009. The eagerly anticipated sequel/parallel story to Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict.

Laurie Viera Rigler’s debut novel, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, was a hit with fans and critics, and a BookSense and Los Angeles Times bestseller. Its open-to-interpretation ending left readers begging for more-and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict delivers. While Confessions took twenty-first-century free spirit Courtney Stone into the social confines of Jane Austen’s era, Rude Awakenings tells the parallel story of Jane Mansfield, a gentleman’s daughter from Regency England who inexplicably awakens in Courtney’s overly wired and morally confused L.A. life.

For Jane, the modern world is not wholly disagreeable. Her apartment may be smaller than a dressing closet, but it is fitted up with lights that burn without candles, machines that wash bodies and clothes, and a glossy rectangle in which tiny people perform scenes from her favorite book, Pride and Prejudice. Granted, if she wants to travel she may have to drive a formidable metal carriage, but she may do so without a chaperone. And oh, what places she goes! Public assemblies that pulsate with pounding music. Unbound hair and unrestricted clothing. The freedom to say what she wants when she wants-even to men without a proper introduction.

Privacy, independence, even the power to earn her own money. But how is she to fathom her employer’s incomprehensible dictates about “syncing a BlackBerry” and “rolling a call”? How can she navigate a world in which entire publications are devoted to brides but flirting and kissing and even the sexual act itself raise no matrimonial expectations? Even more bewildering are the memories that are not her own. And the friend named Wes, who is as attractive and confusing to Jane as the man who broke her heart back home. It’s enough to make her wonder if she would be better off in her own time, where at least the rules are clear-that is, if returning is even an option.

You can also read a preview of the story line on Laurie’s web site. I am so excited for this book and can’t wait to read it. Check out Laurie’s first novel, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict.

Congratulations Laurie, and best wishes! Laurel Ann, Austenprose & Vic (Ms. Place, Jane Austen's World