When Charlotte Kinder treats herself to a two-week vacation at Austenland, she happily leaves behind her ex-husband and his delightful new wife, her ever-grateful children, and all the rest of her real life in America. She dons a bonnet and stays at a country manor house that provides an immersive Austen experience, complete with gentleman actors who cater to the guests' Austen fantasies. Everyone at Pembrook Park is playing a role, but increasingly, Charlotte isn't sure where roles end and reality begins. And as the parlor games turn a little bit menacing, she finds she needs more than a good corset to keep herself safe. Is the brooding Mr. Mallery as sinister as he seems? What is Miss Gardenside's mysterious ailment? Was that an actual dead body in the secret attic room? And-perhaps of the most lasting importance-could the stirrings in Charlotte's heart be a sign of real-life love? The follow-up to reader favorite Austenland provides the same perfectly plotted pleasures, with a feisty new heroine, plenty of fresh and frightening twists, and the possibility of a romance that might just go beyond the proper bounds of Austen's world. How could it not turn out right in the end?

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Charlotte Kinder's life seems to be fraying at the seams. First her marriage breaks up after her husband's infidelity, now her daughter is flirting with a questionable male of her own. When Charlotte tries to start up a conversation about the boy, her daughter gives her an "ugh, don't you remember what it was like to be young?!" moment. Spurred by the hurt of such a comment, Charlotte gets all nostalgic and starts digging through photos and old papers, where she finds a journal with an entry marked "Things To Do Before I'm 30"... a list that includes reading all of Austen's works and, at some point, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. Charlotte admits to herself that Kilimanjaro might not be quite the thing to tackle at this particular moment of unrest in her life, but maybe the Austen idea is still doable.

 

While she doesn't delve into the Austen novels themselves, Charlotte does decide to take a vacation to the exclusive Austen-themed resort, Austenland. Maybe there, she can find the old Charlotte, the one that was a bit more than the bland, simple "nice" everyone seems to label her. She doesn't want to be just good ol' reliable Charlotte, she wants some edge! But, you know, old habits die hard. 

 

This Austenland 2 revisits Pembrook Park and brings back a few characters, mainly Mrs. Wattlesworth and Miss Charming, but also offers a whole new cast of characters as well. And this cast brings the edge Charlotte thinks she's missing... but maybe more than she bargained for! Also returning is resident lush Mr. Wattlesworth. 

 

"Attempted murder is becoming so mundane."  ~ Charlotte

 

Taking inspiration from Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, Midnight In Austenland toys with the same themes Austen did in her novel, namely our main character getting caught up in a possible murder mystery, leaving her not knowing who to trust. But is there an actual threat or is it Charlotte's runaway imagination? So as you might notice, the plot here is a bit darker in tone than its predecessor. Once again, author Shannon Hale has her characters struggling with the question of what is or isn't real in this recreated Regency world.

 

Instead of ex-boyfriend recaps at the start of each chapter (as seen in Austenland), Midnight in Austenland prefaces each chapter with flashbacks of moments from Charlotte's childhood or marriage, memories she thinks back on that might hold clues to how / where / why her life took a turn for the worse. 

 

 

 

I read Midnight In Austenland shortly after watching the film adaptation of Austenland starring Keri Russell. Though the film naturally pulls largely from the first book, after reading a few chapters into this second book, I suspected that some minor details were taken from this book as well and incorporated into the film (on which author Shannon Hale was an associate producer)... lines from the film like Mr Nobley uttering "you make me nervous" or him being related to Mrs. Wattlesworth... those details actually appear in this second book, not the first (although it is character Mr. Mallery who is related to the proprietor, not Nobley, as presented in the film). Also, there is a speech Charlotte makes near the end of this second book that incorporates details that make up part of the ending of the film. All that said, these two novels, though linked by the setting of Pembrook Park, can easily be read as stand-alone novels. 

 

 

Though much of the inspiration for this story comes from Austen's Northanger Abbey, a heads up to readers: there are a few spoilers here for Austen's Mansfield Park as well. 

These trickled in over the course of the week, so as I was putting this together I was surprised how many there were; if you'd asked me, I'd have said 2-3 max.

 

The Bookshop Strikes Back by Ann Patchett almost doesn't count as a book, it's really a special printing pamphlet Bloomsbury books did of Patchett's essay from the Atlantic Monthly in 2012.  I hunted it down because I'm building a small "books about books" collection.  It's a good essay, btw.

 

Old Herbaceous is one I picked up from one of my BL friends' posts; I have got to start using the notes function so I can properly thank people by name.

 

Midnight in Austenland was recommended to me by Darth Pony (ha! remembered!) because I'd read the first book, Austenland and thought it was pretty good.

 

Love, Lies and Spies was an impulse buy when I stopped at our local bookstore to buy MT a copy of The Hunger Games.  After being eyeball-deep in Harry Bosch and books by Baldacci he turned to me the other night and said he wanted to read The Hunger Games.  Cool, although I'm still trying to adjust to the genre whiplash.

 

New books: 6

Books read: 3

Total physical TBR: 221

 

Happy weekend everyone!

hale's writing style is refreshing and her humour clever and i simply couldn't stop myself from devouring this book in a day. i truly enjoyed this one, especially because northanger abbey is one of my favourite austen novels. a great follow-up to austenland.

I was told that Midnight in Austenland was much better than Austenland and I have to agree. The first book in the series was fun, but I didn't really like Jane and I didn't know much at all about Henry Jenkins/Mr. Nobley, so it was hard to care about their happily ever after. That is not the case with this book.

Charlotte Kinder was cheated on by her shithead ex, James, who took her money and slept with some bimbo named Justice--seriously, JUSTICE?! Who names their kid JUSTICE? I would rather be Apple or Suri than Justice. Anyway, feeling down about her real life, she decides to go on a vacation to Austenland, a British estate that is made into a Regency Era home, where women come to be romanced by Mr. Darcies for two weeks. Charlotte is given a whole new persona (Mrs. Charlotte Cordial, a widower visiting her brother Mr. Edmund Grey) and a man to woo her (Mr. Mallery--not a spoiler). While Austenland was very obviously Pride and Prejudice (even to someone who has never read a single Austen novel), this book is very much Northanger Abbey complete with an actual whodunit--Charlotte finds an actual dead body while playing a game very similar to one I played at a classmate's halloween party in 1994 (I was 7 going on 8 at the time--not in my 30's like Charlotte).

It was fairly obvious early on just who Charlotte was going to end up with, although from my experience reading Austenland, I wasn't going to trust anyone at Pembrook Park--no one is ever who they appear to be. In the end, I was right about the relationship, not to mention pleased with how the romance played out (I still have issues with the non-development of the Jane/Henry Jenkins relationship, so I was very happy to see a real build up between Charlotte and her suitor).

That said, I did have some problems with this book and it is completely the fault of Shannon Hale's world building. In creating Pembrook Park, she also created a type of prostitution house--even if no one is actually having sex. The ick factor of having women pay exorbitant amounts of money to be wooed by gorgeous men, who are being paid to be there, never really goes away. Charlotte even mentions the gigolo factor at one point. The other problem I had comes from having read Austenland. Because of the Martin twist in the end of that book, I found it very hard to trust anything the characters had to say. I was always suspicious of Eddie and even Lydia. The only one I never doubted was Miss Charming and that was only because of her presence in the first book. Not being able to trust the characters in a novel are being truthful is a big problem for me; it is the main reason that I do not like first person novels (you can never quite tell when the narrator is honestly representing events the way you can with the omniscient 3rd person narrator).

All in all, I liked Midnight in Austenland, and I would recommend it to anyone.

3.5 Stars

No. Just no.

I thought "Austenland" was such a cute book; perfectly pink and fluffy and some of the best Austen-fanfiction I've read in years. So of course I wanted to read the sequel, as a bit of guilty pleasure always should be indulged. But sadly "Midnight in Austenland" left me with more guilt than pleasure.

I do appreciate the fact, that "Midnight in Austenland" is built upon Austen's slightly overlooked "Northanger Abbey", but that's about the only thing I do like about this book.
The story is just too morbid and absurd. A murder in a Austen theme park, falling in love with your supposed sibling (?), an American woman who seems to be living an eternal Austen-fantasy while pretending to be British, an actor who thinks he really is in the 19th century and a seriously disturbed maid - honestly, wasn't the whole idea of Pembrook Park a bit far-fetched already?

How would I describe this book? As Jane Austen meeting Agatha Christie. And of course we all know that such a combination would be anything but graceful.