A to Z April: R Reviews - Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler/Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

My books today are from two opposite genres.  The first is one of two books that draws on the obsession so many people have with Jane Austen books, both readers today as well as those when the books were written.  The second is a science fiction book, the first in a series that I got behind after four or five, but hope one day to maybe get back into them.

First is Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler, and it is actually the 2nd book in the Jane Austen Addict series.  But it fit into my A to Z to do this one, so I'll discuss it today.  The first book in the series had to do with a modern day girl, Courtney, back into time period of the Jane Austen books. This 2nd book takes the girl she kind of replaced in that time period, Jane, and plops her in modern day life in Los Angeles.  Here's the blurb from Goodreads:
While Confessions took twenty-first-century free spirit Courtney Stone into the social confines of Jane Austen's era, Rude Awakenings tells the parallel story of Jane Mansfield, a gentleman's daughter from Regency England who inexplicably awakens in Courtney's overly wired and morally confused L.A. life.

For Jane, the modern world is not wholly disagreeable. Her apartment may be smaller than a dressing closet, but it is fitted up with lights that burn without candles, machines that wash bodies and clothes, and a glossy rectangle in which tiny people perform scenes from her favorite book, Pride and Prejudice. Granted, if she wants to travel she may have to drive a formidable metal carriage, but she may do so without a chaperone. And oh, what places she goes! Public assemblies that pulsate with pounding music. Unbound hair and unrestricted clothing. The freedom to say what she wants when she wants-even to men without a proper introduction.

Jane relishes the privacy, independence, even the power to earn her own money. But how is she to fathom her employer's incomprehensible dictates about "syncing a BlackBerry" and "rolling a call"? How can she navigate a world in which entire publications are devoted to brides but flirting and kissing and even the sexual act itself raise no matrimonial expectations? Even more bewildering are the memories that are not her own. And the friend named Wes, who is as attractive and confusing to Jane as the man who broke her heart back home. It's enough to make her wonder if she would be better off in her own time, where at least the rules are clear-that is, if returning is even an option.

Second is Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.  It is a really cool story about a plant that has some kind of mutative powers when ingested.  And it has created a monster.  A monster that is transported to a museum where it creates havoc. Loved this story, and just ignore the horrible movie made from it!   Also this story brings together two people who will be a duo that the series will follow.  Here is the blurb for the first one from Goodreads:
Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human...

But the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders.

Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who-or what-is doing the killing. But can she do it in time to stop the massacre?


Are you a big Jane Austen fan?  What would you do if you were all of a sudden living in that time period?  What do you think about a mystery in a museum of a killer creature that no one has ever seen before?  Scary?  Have you seen the movie they made of the book, which for the most part was pretty bad?

While you're here, don't forget to enter my month-long giveaway that goes along with the challenge.

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