Pocket, paranormal romance, August 2008

I was both excited and leery to read this book. Excited because I'm an Austen addict, and I tend to read any play on her stuff. Leery because, well, I admit it, the cover was a little off-putting for me, giving me a chick lit vibe, and I'm not the biggest fan of chick lit, which, to me, is filled with shallow people gushing about shoes over cosmopolitans. Thankfully, my leeriness did not pay off, even though the opening scene contains an homage to Sex and the City, and I think I'm the one person on the planet who sees no redeeming qualities in that show. My point is, though, that it was good, despite all the warning signs to me otherwise.

To begin with, Flip (short for Phillipa) Allison is an ornithologist at the University of Pittsburgh. I don't know if I've ever mentioned it here, but I'm a bit of an amateur birdwatcher myself, so I immediately bonded with her. A dressed-down heroine covered in bird crap is much more my style than some Manolo-wearing society chick. Anyway, Flip and her friends have a raucous discussion about the more prurient details of Pride and Prejudice, or rather, the prurient details that are missing. Flip's under a lot of stress, applying for a fellowship to Cornell that she's afraid she won't get, since her ex-husband Jed is also applying and he's the better-known name in their field, so when she comes across an ad for a massage parlor, she decides to go.

The masseuse tells her to imagine herself in a favorite book, and though Flip plans to go for the latest steamy romance she's reading, thanks to her recent discussion with her friends, she ends up in Pride and Prejudice, at a point before Darcy meets Lizzy, and has a passionate and public fling with Darcy himself. It's only when she comes out of her daydream and comes across a first edition of the book that she discovers her visit altered the plot.

Magnus Knightley is one of the world's premier Austen scholars, and he disdains all the women in the universe who have a crush on Darcy, preferring to focus on the social commentary in Austen's works. So when Flip comes to him with this wild story, he thinks she's delusional, until he sees the alterations in his prized second edition of the book. Now he and Flip have to travel back into the book and fix the problem within 24 hours, or the book will change permanently. What results is a terrific comedy of errors -- you know those scenes in Scooby Doo that are set to music, with the gang and the bad guys chasing each other, opening and slamming doors and stuff? It's like that, but with outrageously funny results.

Ms. Cready has written an extremely clever story here, somehow remaining faithful to Austen while at the same time giving readers a unique experience of Austen's world. The way she ties in the details about birds with revenge for the characters you most want to see get their comeuppances (in both present day and in the Austen-verse), AND bring two people together while they are in the guise of other people is brilliant. About the only complaint I have about this book is there are a few places where the editing is off, but that's really it.

Fans of time-travel romances, chick lit, birds, Austen, and humorous contemporary romances will all adore this book. As for myself, I'm going to seek out her first book, Tumbling Through Time.

1/2

Review © 2009 by Riley's Reviews