Kathleen A. FlynnReseñas

Rachel and Liam have been sent back to 1815 with a mission: to prevent an unpublished Jane Austen manuscript from being destroyed. In 1815 England, they will pose as a brother and sister raised in Jamaica, now in London with money to spend. They will seek out contact with Henry Austen, Jane's favorite brother, and try to inveigle their way into an acquaintance with Jane from there. If they're successful, they might be able to add another Austen title to the canon -- and if they could prevent the destruction of Jane's letters to her sister, that would be another boon to Austen scholarship. Furthermore, Rachel, a doctor, hopes to learn something about the mysterious illness that will soon bring the author's life to an end. Can she save Jane Austen?

I enjoyed the bulk of this book, but I wasn't crazy about the ending. It fizzled out a bit. I also could have done without the romance -- I never felt that there was a whole lot of chemistry there. There's not a lot of heavy sci-fi here, so if you're in it for that aspect, this might not work for you -- but if you want Jane Austen as a character interacting with individuals from the future, that part of the story is solid.½

This book is like the little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead... When it's good, it's really good---but when it's bad, it's horrid.

I absolutely LOVE the idea of this story. The time-travel element, (always so hokey but so, so appealing!) Jane, England, excellent imagery; not to mention immediate kudos to the publishing team for a period-correct Regency style dress on the cover. The story made me think about the fact that we really have no right to be delving into the private lives of famous people just because they're now dead...it made me wonder if I should read the book on Jane Austen's letters that I just received in the mail. It also gave a really interesting take on Cassandra. I always saw her as much more kind than this story makes her to be, but her abruptness and coldness fits well with the notion that she was Jane's defender in many ways. In fact, besides getting the ending everyone wanted in the most anticlimactic way possible, the only thing that super bugged me about this story was Raunchy Rachel.

I think this was supposed to be the story of a woman who finally discovers the difference between lust and love? Rachel's views on sex really took away from a brilliant story---it seemed weirdly out of place and immature in an otherwise excellently written book. Too bad the author didn't take a lesson from Austen and write something romantic with a character who had self-respect and allowed us to respect her too. Rachel is so forward and gross that one wonders why decent and respectable men are declaring their "unworthiness" in her presence. I feel like she should be clomping around in manure-coated cowboy boots and spitting tobacco. Nothing is "lovely" or "dear" about this woman.

The ending dialogue was badly written. Please, I need an alternate reality where the last 10 pages of this novel are rewritten with the same quality as the first 370ish.

What a lovely read, reminded me of To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. Of course it would, stories about people from our future travelling to Victorian England are perhaps rather niche.
I liked how this was filled with love for Jane Austen and her works. The author clearly read all her novels and everything she could find on Jane and wove it into something lovely and endearing.
Interesting take on time travel too!

Loved this book! Very fun time travel adventure.

I loved the idea of this book. Jane Austen and time travel in the same book? What could be more awesome?
I did enjoy it, but not as much as I expected to. The more I got to know the narrator Rachel, the less I liked her, and the love story seemed to come out of nowhere. Still, for some reason, probably because I was drawn into the romance like a sucker, I was pulling for Rachel in the end. But I have to agree with other reviewers who have a problem with how abruptly it ended.
I liked the idea of new realities being created by time travel. I wouldn't have minded if she had spent a little more time on it. And I love that they saved Jane Austen.
Ultimately, a bit disappointing, but Austen fanatics still might want to check it out.

There was a moment in the beginning of the book when a sentence made me stop reading and smile because I recognized a name and the sentence made me realize that the author has read my favorite book; Possession by A.S. Byatt. I will even quote the sentence: A statue of the poet Randolph Henry Ash, which had long stood in a traffic circle in Hampstead, had disappeared overnight, along with all records of its creation. The poet Randolph Henry Ash is one of the main characters in Possession and I thought this makes sense, someone has traveled back in time changed history so now we have no recollection of Randolph Henry Ash. The reason I thought so is that I think Randolph Henry Ash is one of the best poets ever, and he has never ever lived!

Anyway, I got a bit sidetracked by my love for Possession. Back to The Jane Austen Project. This book is fabulous, one thing that I truly loved with it was it really dealt with the consequences of traveling back in time, The changes it brings to the future. This is something that Rachel, the book's narrator ponders over during the books progress. How their presence will change history. Even small things can have big consequences as the ending will show.

Rachel Katzman and Liam Finucane mission are to steal a manuscript from Jane Austen. But, befriending Jane has its consequences. Especially Rachel finds it hard to just play a role and try to find a moment to steal the manuscript. Rachel starts to like Jane, and as a doctor, she also starts to think about saving Janes life, but that would truly have consequences...

The Jane Austen Project is one of the best books I have read about time travel. I adore the beautiful cover and I found the story engrossing.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

A good, solid piece of Jane Austen fanfic. The time travel element was well framed. A non-spoiler example: the time travelers were sent back well trained in the expectations and skills they would need to pass off in their chosen roles. There wasn't a lot of depth -- I didn't come away from this with any new insights into Jane Austen or her works -- but it was an enjoyable read.

Rachel Katzman lives in a future version of our world where time travel is possible. She and Liam Finucane are about to embark on a project to go to 1815; their goal is to collect Jane Austen's letters to her sister, Cassandra, and the manuscript of The Watsons. Liam is a bit of a puzzle to Rachel, who is a doctor; he is a nonfiction writer with an acting background. Their strengths complement each other once they arrive in 1815 and set up house, trying to befriend Henry Austen before Jane comes to town. They become more enmeshed in the Austen family than they could have predicted, and suspect that they have begin to change the future as well, but it's not clear how much until they return to the present.

See also: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon; The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway

Quotes

It was a strange feeling to know his future: distracting and a little melancholy. (62)

I reminded myself of a character in a Jane Austen novel...divided from the person I most needed to see, reliant on chance or the actions of others to bring us together. (94)

To survive as a woman here and remain sane, it was essential to have a healthy sense of the ridiculous... (164)

We are just vessels. The art is eternal. (266)

Weren't we all like this, dragging around scraps of the past that didn't fit, incompletely overwritten versions of ourselves, always hopeful that someday we'd figure things out and put them right?
But we never do. And what instead? (366)

Prettige onderdompeling in de wereld van Jane Austen. Goede belichting van de zeden en gewoonten, omgangsvormen, huiselijk leven, wooninrichting, kledij én bovendien een goed gestoffeerd verhaal. Een niet te missen roman voor Jane Austenfans!½

Rachel Katzman and Liam Finucane are sent back to 1815 England to find and retrieve the completed The Watsons novel of Jane Austen, and find the correspondence destroyed by Cassandra Austen. What could go wrong, and much could they change the future.
An enjoyable well-written story.

I enjoy the writings of Jane Austin, but I would never want to travel back in time to the 1800's. This is kind of like a really well-written fan fiction of any Jane Austin novel, which is part of the reason l liked it. I felt a little confused at the ending, especially with how the timeline changed, but I still liked how the characters adapted.

The audience I would recommend for this book is those who are old enough to handle some mature content and implications. Nothing I read scandalized me, but I was surprised when those situations showed up. I'm pretty sure that wasn't part of the original Jane Austin books.

I've never much enjoyed Austen, so a time travel book centered on Austen was a bit of a risk for me. I picked this one up as a random library shelf find. I sneered a little when I saw the title and read the description, but then I decided to resist my inner snob and try the book out anyway. It was a mistake. The book reads at times like a modern day ham-fisted imitation of Regency literature, but wrapped in a sort of ham-fisted sci-fi-ish story, with a dab of bumbling love affair writing. Honestly, the book wasn't as horrible as I expected it to be, but it certainly wasn't to my taste, and though it may be literary in that it deals with a literary figure, it's not what I would call, on its own merits, a piece of literary fiction (which is fine; other genres are certainly worth reading). I guess it's basically a work of fan fiction, and I didn't find it very satisfying.

This is an engaging time travel novel, in which a doctor and an actor team up to retrieve a lost novel of Jane Austen's. In the quest, they discover that small acts can potentially change the course of history.

I enjoyed the Regency aspect and the philosophical questions enormously.

Time travel is the essence here. Dr. Rachel Katzman and Liam Finucane (actor, professor, Old British poseur) are colleagues who go back to 1815 posing as Mary and William Ravenswood, a brother and sister newly arrived in England after selling their Jamaican coffee plantation (and freeing their slaves). Their mission is to attain copies of Jane Austen's lost letters to her sister Cassandra, as well as a novel, The Watsons that she had not finished in "real" history. They have a fake letter of introduction to Henry Watson, Jane's brother, a large amount of (fake) British money, and a vast knowledge of the time period and the Austens. What this novel does a good job of is showing all the little details that make it nearly impossible to live in a time other than your own, as well as the risks involved. Aside from showing up naked and dazed in the Time Traveller's Wife, the protagonists in other stories don't have the same realistic view of some of the problems they face, here namely death, if they are perceived as French spies or "witches." The crossroads gibbet they view upon arrival is a chilling reminder of this. The other big challenge is not to alter the probability field -- i.e. mess with events as they historically had unfolded -- because altering any part of the past will have repercussions in the future, which ultimately is the present Rachel and Liam will return to. This unspecified time is vaguely futuristic: there has been a "dying off" and seems to be a re-org of society with the British on top, specifically "old British" but not much more than this is explained. The 1815 details are well-done and the Austens thoroughly researched by the author which is impressive. Rachel is a little to "plucky" to fit convincingly in the time period, though it is interesting that though she is the medical doctor, it is Liam who must fill that role convincingly with both Henry and jane's health. There is sexual tension between Liam and Rachel (ew, since they are "siblings") and also between Mary and Henry, and Liam and Jane. So due to the medical angle and the romantic interest, Liam and Rachel are in with the Austens. The mission goes along well for about 9 months, and then things take a drastic turn. Return to the "present" is a little fuzzy and difficult to grasp, and I didn't even time-travel! Always an intriguing story concept, but also always a lot to wrap my mind around which challenges my ability to really be all in.

Loved the time traveling concepts (ie: the SciFi), the depiction of Austen's era, and the core relationships that carry through the book. The ending gave me a happy cry.

Something about Rachel initially put me off. But as she and Liam worked their way into the society of the Austens with the goal of gathering Jane’s letters, somewhere along the way I started liking them and was pleasantly surprised by the end. This time travel book doesn’t shy away from the idea that the future can be changed.

Rachel, a doctor, and her colleague go back to 1815 in part to diagnose the illness that kills Jane but also to save letters and a manuscript. This was not quite what I was expecting but it was an intriguing read.

Rachel and Liam, a doctor and an actor-turned-academic, are sent back in time to 1815. Their mission is to befriend Jane Austen’s family and uncover, amongst other things, an unpublished novel. This book impressed me even though -- or perhaps because -- it wasn’t always comfortable or to my taste. It had the potential to be a book I adored, if things had been slightly different, yet it is nevertheless a gripping and thought-provoking piece of storytelling, and I respect that.

Time travel allows for portraying Austen’s world with historical accuracy from the perspective of a woman with contemporary attitudes, who can comment on details that an Austen heroine wouldn’t mention or even be aware of. Time travel also creates interesting challenges and anxieties (beyond the easily-researched-and-anticipated physical discomforts of 19th century daily life): the pressures of maintaining a cover identity, of having to follow old-fashioned cultural norms to avoid suspicion; the need for Rachel to hide her medical expertise; the weirdness of befriending people knowing much about them that one must not betray -- personal details they wouldn’t readily share and information about their future; the uncertainty stemming from the possibility that Rachel and Liam will unintentionally change the future, and the risk that they will be stuck in the past.

But the biggest challenge is Rachel’s mission itself. Because the information we want, and can feel justified in having, about long-dead historical figures is not information we can demand from an acquaintance. Rachel needs to seem like a perfectly respectable 19th century woman so that she has the opportunity to develop a closer acquaintance with the Austen family -- but what Rachel is seeking is not the sort of things she feels entitled to from a friend.

On one hand, there is a high degree of wish fulfilment -- Rachel gets to meet Jane Austen! And Jane is so lively, observant and intelligent, the sort of person one would want to befriend even if she weren’t an important literary figure! But on the other hand, by revealing Jane Austen to be a real person, she becomes someone with a right to privacy. I liked that. And I liked that there were realistic consequences to what Rachel does. Good consequences as well as uncomfortable ones.

[...] and I was left with Jane Austen and my own sense of disbelief. How long had I anticipated this day, worked toward it, longed for it? And what I mostly felt was fear; I would have given anything to be at home reading one of her books instead. How can you possibly impress Jane Austen?

Also interesting: Rachel isn’t a stereotypical Austen fan. She’s content being single and confident with casual relationships -- she doesn’t “do tender feelings”. Yet even though she’s not much of a romantic, she obviously has a deep admiration for Austen and her work. (And because Rachel is used to working in remote and dangerous places, when she does develop unexpectedly romantic inclinations, it’s clear that it is more than physical attraction or a reaction to their intense situation.) Liam seems more of a romantic, and is as much a fan of Austen as Rachel is.

I found the premise of "The Jane Austen Project", time travelers from our future being sent back to 1815 to inveigle their way into an intimate acquaintance with Jane Austen with a view of diagnosing the disease that would kill her in 1817 and retrieving a copy of her unpublished novel "The Watsons", irresistible

I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was much more than a good idea written up over a few hundred pages. "The Jane Austen Project" is well written, engaging and original.

The story is told from the point of view of Rachel, a physician with a history of working in disaster zones in her own time, who is passionate about meeting Jane and deeply curious about the disease that will end Jane's life.

Placing a strong, competent woman with a broad experience of the world and an expectation of being in charge of her own life into England in 1815 is a very effective way of highlighting the constraints placed on women at that time and the frustration and waste that they caused.

Rachel is a deeply imagined character that it is easy to become attached to. The future she comes from is tantalizingly different from today. That I wanted to know more about it and her life before the Jane Austen Project, is a sign of skill of the story teller. I was tantalized and intrigued. I came to realise that Rachel's past was as alien as the 1815 present the action takes place in.

I was surprised at how much tension I felt reading the book. I wanted to know what happened next. This wasn't an academic exercise or a passive homage to Jane Austen. It started as a difficult mission where failure could have disastrous consequences and became a personal and emotional journey for Rachel and those who's lives she touches.

Seeing the world of Jane Austen through the eyes of a woman from an unknown future but who has a detailed knowledge of Jane's life and works produced a kind of refraction of ideas and expectations that kept the novel fresh and made me think again about what I thought I knew of Jane Austen and her times.

Fans of Jane Austen will be fascinated by this book. People who only know Jane through various Mr Darcy movies will not feel left out but may find themselves intrigued. My interest in Jane Austen's books was revived to the extent that my next read will be "Persuasion", a Jane Austen novel that I've never read before.

Saskia Maarleveld did a competent job as a narrator but I was distracted by her inability to pronounce place names like "Berkley Square" and "Basingstoke" correctly.

This is Kathleen Flynn's debut novel, She's a copy editor at the New York Times. In this interview she discusses how the novel came about and what it was like for an editor to be edited.

I hope I see more work from her soon.

The wonderful Saskia Maarleveld was the Narrator of the audiobook version of this novel.
4 stars, and recommended to everyone who loves a good story.

Best book I've read all year!
Actually, this is the best book I've read in quite a while. Really, really enjoyable from start to finish.

Best book I've read all year!
Actually, this is the best book I've read in quite a while. Really, really enjoyable from start to finish.

As cute and fluffy as expected - Time traveler fangirl and fanboy are looking for a lost manuscript and flirt their way to Jane...

Colleagues Rachel Katzman and Liam Finucane have been sent on the most ambitious mission of their time travel institute since its inception: travel back to 1815 and enmesh themselves in the lives of the Austens in order to rescue a copy of "The Watsons," which due to a recently discovered letter has been proven to be completed rather than a fragment. However, while working their way into the lives of the family they must grapple with the question of whether there are other things they could change and what the repercussions would be.

I really enjoyed this historical science fiction novel. Flynn does an excellent job of creating a believable Jane Austen that is in line with the historical record we have. She also creates really compelling characters in Rachel and Liam although I found Liam too much of a Darcy-esque enigma and the ending a bit to quick, even if it is an homage to Austen's works. This is definitely light on the science fiction element - there isn't a lot of detail about the logistics of time travel but everything makes sense within the world. High appeal for Janeites, of course, but also for fans of historical fiction or time travel novels.

My ebook viewer lists only 6 Jane Austen Novels, not 17. What a bitter disappointment.½