In fact, Willig recreates the Regency era so well that Jane Austen herself appears as a childhood friend of the heroine, Arabella Dempsey.

Spurned by a would-be suitor and fed up with being a gofer for Aunt Osborne, Arabella becomes a junior instructress at Miss Climpson’s Academy for Young Ladies.

The pace of the novel picks up considerably when Arabella meets blue-eyed Reginald Fitzhugh, the older brother of one of her charges. Mr. Fitzhugh, aka Turnip, draws Arabella into a web of espionage  intent on overthrowing Napoleon and his government.

Humor abounds when the messages are exchanged via the muslin wrapped around the seasonal Christmas pudding, the music master loses his mustache and Turnip ascends the trellis to Arabella’s room.

But all is not fun and games.  Somebody thinks Arabella is hiding  something and they will not stop until it is found.  Arabella’s room is vandalized and she is grabbed from behind in the music room and held at the point of a scimitar.

Is Turnip really the spy known as the Pink Carnation?  Will Arabella be fired when she is discovered kissing Turnip in her room?

Our subdivision book club thoroughly enjoyed this Christmas romp through 19th century England.

Discussion questions follow:

1.  If you have never read a book by Jane Austen or knew nothing about the  Regency period of English history, what would you have learned from ‘The Mischief of the Mistletoe’?

2.  How does the author turn two social misfits into a hero and a heroine?

3.  What was Turnip’s intention when he called Arabella Cinderella?  What was Arabella’s reaction?

4.  Why do you think Arabella accepted the lowly position as junior instructress at Miss Climpson’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies instead of a position as a governess for a private family?

5.  What does Turnip like about Arabella and vice versa?

6.  How does the traditional English Christmas differ from today’s celebrations?

7.  What is the possibility that Reginald Fitzhugh was really the Pink Carnation?

8.  Why did Willig include the character of Jane Austen in ‘The Mischief of the Mistletoe’?

9.  Did the author want the reader to feel sorry for Arabella?  Why or why not?

10.  How do the following phrases:  “All those shining faces eager to learn. . . And shaping the minds of the young for years to come,” apply to the goings on at the Seminary for Young Ladies?

11.  Which term(s) best describe ‘The Mischief of the Mistletoe’?

Romance: a novel or other prose narrative depicting heroic or marvelous deeds, pageantry, romantic exploits, usually in a historical or imaginary setting.

Farce: a light, humorous play in which the plot depends upon a skillfully exploited situation rather than upon the development of character.

Anti-Napoleon espionage thriller

12.  Does the title, ‘Mischief of the Mistletoe’ accurately describe the plot of this novel?  What would be a more appropriate title?

A clergyman’s daughter, Ms. Austen, died 179 years before leaving  a legacy of six works, two of which were published posthumously.

Yet those six novels of Regency England have spawned 52 movies and TV presentations over a period of 71 years as well as a vast number of readable look-alikes and sequels. (A  movie list may be found here.)

Hoping to cash in on the ever-growing Austen fervor, book publishers have accepted and issued novel after novel to satisfy the public’s thirst for more.

Three of these Austenesque works will be featured below:

Austenland

by

Shannon Hale

For a tribute to Jane Austen and the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice (1995) check out this slim volume of 194 pages.
(Anyone who has viewed this version of  P and P will readily understand the author’s dedication and her main character’s obsession with Mr. Darcy as played by Colin Firth.)

Seeking to rid her life of this aforementioned obsession, Jane Hayes, a 33-year-old graphic artist, accepts a free, three-week vacation at Pembroke Park, Kent.

To participate in the 1816 live-action-role-play (LARP), this  modern day New Yorker must exchange her purple bra and panties for a Regency costume complete with chemise, push-up bra corset, white cotton drawers, thigh-high stockings fastened with garters, a blue print day dress and black ankle boots.

Humorously, Miss Jane Erstwhile (the former Jane Hayes) fumbles her way through the exaggerated table manners and proper etiquette of the times regarding servants, the opposite sex and dancing.

While being wooed by paid actors exhibiting the best and worst traits of  Austen’s leading men, Jane struggles with the dizziness of exaggerated flirting and the underlying falseness of the entire situation.

“I come for Mr. Darcy, fall for the gardener and get propositioned by the drunk husband,” she laments.

Readers will chuckle at Jane’s clumsy efforts to fit into the stifling role of an 18th century lady while striving to exist without her  handy cell phone and MP3 player.

Others complained that the novel was too short and could have been expanded especially the behind-the-scenes episodes and the unexpected ending.

Kudos to Ms. Hale for sticking to Austen’s code of morality and omitting the crude language and sex scenes penned by other imitators.

Jane Austen in Boca

by

Paula Marantz Cohen

Ms. Cohen set her witty adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in the Boca Festa retirement village where the main characters indulge in harmless flirtation to spark up their senior years.

Female friends, Flo Kliman, retired librarian, and grieving widow, May Newman, establish an easy rapport with fellow seniors, Norman Grafstein, a wealthy widower, and Stan Jacobs, a  semi-retired professor at Florida Atlantic University.

Into this amiable mix, the author inserts Mel Shrimer, a flamboyant journalist, who pursues Flo shamelessly while defaming Stan at the same time.

At the Valentine’s Day Dance, Shrimer is a no show leaving Flo to entertain a belligerent Stan.

Meanwhile septuagenarian Lila Katz marries bon vivant Hy Marcus in an ostentatious ceremony and departs for a European honeymoon powered by Viagra.

After Norman’s family visit to North Jersey, he and May are reunited as Mel Shrimer reappears to marry Roz Fliegler, a rich widow.  (Smarmy Shrimer was privy to the financial losses of Flo’s late husband.)

When Stan finally proposes, Flo’s reply is a diatribe equal to the one spoken by Elizabeth Bennett over 200 years ago.  Need I say more?

Some readers may find Flo’s computer prowess and reliance on e-mail a detraction, but Jane Austen in Boca remains an entertaining read for most Austenites.

Jane and His Lordship’s Legacy

by

Stephanie Barron

Number eight in Ms. Barron’s mystery series finds Jane and her mother moving into Chawton House, displacing the bailiff’s widow and angering the villagers.

Privately grieving the death of fellow-detective, Lord Howard Trowbridge, Jane is baffled by the  local’s cold welcome and Jack Hinton’s claim to the Hampshire estates slated to be inherited by Edward, her brother and landlord.

Add in the uproar raised by Trowbridge’s relatives when the lady detective inherits the Lord’s papers, letters and diaries, a dead laborer in the cellar plus the theft of the chest full of papers and the formerly quiet village of Chawton bubbles over with activity.

This ‘mystery of manners’ has netted high praise for Ms. Barron’s  expert recreation of Austen’s prose style, setting and character portrayal.

Jane and His Lordship’s Legacy, heralded for its fast paced narration, realism and believability, should not be overlooked by any Austen fan.

No matter how talented the Austen imitators might be Pride and Prejudice remains my favorite novel by Austen herself – what’s yours?

As for myself, I count approximately 40 works completed besides reading parts of the Bible and some of Shakespeare’s works.  Seems like I have attempted Les Miserables and Tess of the D’Urbervilles at one time or another,  but have not  been able to finish either one.

My all-time favorites would  have to include anything by Jane Austen and J. R. R. Tolkien.

Here’s their list. . . . .

1.Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkein
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurie
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy O’Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables — Victor Hugo

How do your reading habits match up to their expectations?