Lies Jane Austen Told Me
Who knows romance better than Jane Austen? Emma Pierce is pretty sure her favorite author is the expert on love, relationships, and finding a worthy partner. But in Lies Jane Austen Told Me, she is shown to find that there’s more to matchmaking than just clicking on Mr. Darcy’s dating profile.
Modern, clever, and funny, Wright’s novel is a smart remix of tropes from Austen’s work. Austen fans will find frequent references to Pride And Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility, and each chapter begins with a quote from an Austen novel. The characters feel familiar, too: Emma Pierce is the perfect Austen heroine. She’s twenty-six, on a fast-track career in marketing, and sassy but still waiting for Mr. Right. When she looks up from her iPad, she discovers that the relationship she’s committed to is built on sand.
“I deserved to be with someone who loved me, not with someone who ditched me to grill fish for someone else,” Emma decides after catching her boyfriend, Blake, making dinner for another woman. It’s hard, because she wants to get engaged, but her best friend, Silvia, takes her phone away. Adrift in hookup culture, Emma is searching for the real thing. She looks to Austen’s novels for advice but slowly learns that real life is not exactly a romance novel. With the right guy, it can be even better.
Lies Jane Austen Told Me is a satisfying and sweet contemporary romance that knits together romantic classics with modern manners.
Reviewed by
Claire Foster
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
