Jane Austen shuffled off this mortal coil some 200 years, but she’s still got us in her grips. Three Austin authors gather at BookPeople today for afternoon tea and a toast to Jane.
All three books are inspired in some way – wildly different ways, in fact – by our favorite Regency novelist.
Set in current-day Austin, Alyssa Goodnight‘s magical-leaning Austentatious follows a young woman whose carefully considered life plan is upended when she discovers a blank journal capable of delivering messages from the beyond from Jane herself, or “Fairy Jane.”
YA author Jennifer Ziegler (How Not To Be Popular) also takes the contemporary approach with her new novel Sass & Serendipity (forthcoming in July). It transposes Sense and Sensibility‘s endearing, enduring Dashwood sisters to modern-day Texas, where teen sisters struggle with their parents’ divorce.
Like David Liss with The Twelfth Enchantment, which resurrected cunning Mary Crawford, or P.D. James with Death Comes to Pemberley, which sort-of rehabilitated George Wickham, Patrice Sarath picks up a loose end from an Austen novel and gives it a good tug in The Unexpected Miss Bennet. Ever wonder what happened to Pride and Prejudice‘s bookworm middle sister, Mary Bennet? So did Sarath: She made Mary the heroine of her new book.
All three women will be at BookPeople today at 4pm. Tea and scones are on the menu, as well as much celebration of their common inspiration.
This article appears in May 18 • 2012.
