My Jane Austen Summer

 

My Jane Austen Summer:  A Season in Mansfield Park

 a novel by Cindy Jones 

 Publisher:  Wm Morrow/HarperCollins

Release date:  March 29, 2011 

Synopsis

Lily is caught in a cycle of loss:  her mother died of cancer, her boyfriend left her for an earth mother, and she’s been fired from her job for reading Jane Austen novels when she should have been routing payroll tax deposits.  When the opportunity arises to travel to England to re-enact Mansfield Park, she thinks she may finally realize her dream of living in a novel.  But even in England, where Lily is immersed in a literary festival so rich it seems Jane Austen is present, her problems find her.  Lily must summon her resources and confront painful truths before she is demoted to the role of secondary character in her own life.

 

Praise:

“When one has read the six great Austen novels, and been through the juvenilia and the letters, and then reread and then reread the six again, one’s only recourse is the company of others equally bereft. Cindy Jones’s My Jane Austen Summer fills the gap with a nourishing Austen-soaked setting, a wonderfully surprising plot, and Lily, a delightfully peculiar heroine. By being so socially awkward, Lily won my heart. By loving Fanny Price best of all Austen heroines, she also wins my awe and admiration.”

-Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

 

“A beautifully written novel full of surprises, with an unexpected heroine you’ll not soon forget. Cindy Jones’s deeply honest tale of a woman in search of herself carries you away on a literary adventure of the mind and heart, proving her maxim: books …are indeed good for you.”

~Syrie James, author of  The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen 

 

“Austen lovers everywhere will delight in Lily’s summer adventure and wish Cindy Jones had cast them in a role, too, so they could play a part in this whimsical literary treat.”

~Marilyn Brant, author of According to Jane and Friday Mornings at Nine

 

 

“An invitation to get lost in Austen all over again. Janeites will have great fun watching how Cindy Jones cleverly interweaves a very modern romance with the characters, themes, and scenes of Austen’s masterpiece.”

~Lynn Shepherd, author of Murder at Mansfield Park

 

 

“My Jane Austen Summer: A Season in Mansfield Park is a loving tribute to the timeless appeal of the world created by JA .  A delightful and imaginative coming of age story of a young woman’s search for romance, acceptance and belonging, with some help along the way from Jane Austen herself.” 

~Kathleen Kent, author of The Heretic’s Daughter and The Wolves of Andover

 

 

 

“A delightful story that takes us for a romp through the English countryside and into the wonderful world of Jane Austen. You can’t help but root for Lily Berry, a refreshingly real heroine as she searches for herself in a novel and finds something quite unexpected.”

~Shilpi Somaya Gowda, author of Secret Daughter

 

 

“An indulgent escape for anybody who has ever wished they could live in an Austen novel…poignant, funny, and as sharply observant of human foibles as the great Jane herself.”

~Stephanie Barron, author of the Jane Austen Mystery Series