She loves her kids and struggles with trying to do the right thing for them, even when it doesn’t feel right for her. She felt realistic to me in that she had a hard time fully immersing herself in the weirdness of Austenland. I remember enjoying it a lot the first time I read it, and that didn’t change with this re-read. You also meet several new cast members who breathe new life into a similar story.Īs an avid Shannon Hale reader, I originally read this when it was released in 2012, but decided to re-read it after coming across a paperback copy of Austenland in a thrift store. Readers who are familiar with Austenland will recognize several recurring characters such as Colonel Andrews, Miss Charming and the Wattlesbrooks, but I think they’ll be pleased to see these characters continue to grow and change in their own ways. In the beginning, she gets dolled up as a Regency-era lady and hopes to dedicate herself to the immersive experience of living the Austen fantasy, but that goes astray when a mystery reveals itself to Charlotte and her fellow Austenians. They recommend a trip to Austenland, and that is where our story truly begins. Later, her sister-in-law recommends that she take a trip while the kids spend three weeks with her ex-husband, so she contacts her travel agency. Hope had been that thing with burnt feathers buried in her soul, but now it was waking up, stretching, beating fresh wings in the ashes.” Austen’s books made her feel, and that was new, and intoxicating too. The stories pulled out of her sensation after sensation: a fluttering in her belly, a laugh on her lips, a pounding in her heart. She read like a woman drinks water after nearly dying of dehydration. “She was alone in the house for forty-eight hours and spent most of them with a book in her hand. Seeing that reading Austen was something she could easily do, Charlotte picked up the collection of Austen’s works and fell into them when the kids were at their father’s for the weekend.

She had done most of the items on the list, but never quite managed to read Jane Austen or climb Kilimanjaro.

This list included items such as: get married, have a baby, walk in high heels without wobbling, climb Kilimanjaro, and read Jane Austen. She visits her mother for Easter and finds a “Things to Do Before I’m 30” list in her middle school diary. Charlotte is an incredibly successful businesswoman running a landscaping design company online as well as raising two kids, and finds herself described as “nice”. Where Austenland takes on the spirit of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Midnight in Austenland combines it with the much spookier spirit of Northanger Abbey.Ĭharlotte Kinder is not your typical Austenian heroine in that she’s not snarky and she isn’t really looking for romance after her husband decided that he wanted to get remarried to his mistress. Midnight in Austenland is the sequel to Shannon Hale’s 2007 novel Austenland.

Midnight in austenland