It is confusing because I had a hard time figuring out exactly where Shannon Hale was going with this. It is not confusing because there is any difficulty in understanding the plot. This book is part romance, part murder mystery, and a whole lot of confusing. I hardly know what to say for this review.

I know others might complain about there being a mystery in their Regency romance, but being a fan of PBS Mystery, I love it! (even though you could spot the guilty party long before the end). Mallory with his characteristic Byron/Heathcliffe dark brooding was fascinating. And, yes, I did love the mystery, suspense, and especially the chaste, old-fashioned romance. I did like Eddie since he made a wonderful confidant for her while the audience couldn’t tell if he could actually be trusted or not since he was just one of the actors. But then I can’t suppose she would have gone anywhere else since she had so few hobbies aside from gardening. Charlotte herself seemed too practical for a place like Austenland and I often wondered what she was doing there since she kept reminding herself that the place wasn’t real, keeping herself from true immersion in the world created by the park, not to mention that she chafed at being apart from her children, and she seemed to only be a cursory fan of Austen. While Midnight in Austenland doesn’t have the main heroine from the movie, it does have several returning smaller characters, including her loud friend Elizabeth Charming who practically springs to life right off the pages of this story.

I picked this up after seeing the movie Austenland, starring Kerri Russell, which I thought was a sweetheart of a movie. I knew this was fluffy fiction and chick-lit, but it was pretty mediocre even for that genre. The men were either jerks or 'smoldering'. The other characters are so under developed I really didn't care what happened to them one way or the other. She is supposed to be likable, but for some reason isn't. The biggest problem was, I didn't really 'get' the character of Charlotte. It was supposed to be a resemblance of 'Northanger Abbey', but instead strays into Agatha Christie meets a 'Murder She Wrote' primetime T.V. The plotline of this tale was also very awkward and forced. However, the ending was just too sugary and sappy for grown, professional woman with teenaged children.

Given that the whole thing is supposed to be a fantasy this could be expected. That a woman who'd had a husband and two children would fall into this sort of starry-eyed, heart-pounding romance was irritating and fairly unrealistic. I found the central character Charlotte rather juvenile and annoying at times.

For the most part it was more Agatha Christie and less Regency England than one would expect from an Austen themed novel. Having read the author's prior work 'Austenland' I was somewhat disappointed in this Austenland themed story.

Midnight in austenland