Jane Austen? Check. Love story? Check. Time travel? Weird, but check. I wanted to like this book so, so much, but it just fell flat for me. While the introduction to Jane was lovely and felt very true to her legacy, as soon as she hit the modern day, her character began to feel slippery and unfinished. Her observations about modern London were shallow and repetitive --- and I know that there's some necessary observations to being dropped into the future, but I wanted more commentary from Jane on the roles of women, racial diversity and social hierarchies, and less about "the white box" washing her clothes.

An unexpected surprise from JANE IN LOVE was Sofie, the modern-day actress who helps Jane find her way. I read that the author, Rachel Givney, has a background in television and I think it really shows in Sofie's character, which was wonderfully developed and full of complex layers. As much as I loved reading about Sofie, though, it's an obvious issue that in a book about Jane Austen in the future, my attention was pulled more and more to a supporting character.

All in all, I would recommend this book as a light read, but I think that there are better Austen books out there. I would read Rachel Givney again, and I would LOVE more of Sofie's story, but JANE IN LOVE was a miss for me.

A sweet imagining of Jane Austin if she had accidentally time travelled. Sofia's disbelief kinda was stretched out but Fred's adorableness made up for it.

I throughly enjoyed this book and the interesting take it took on for Jane Austen! If you’re looking for a fun read and not necessarily historical facts I definitely suggest picking up a copy!

Phenomenal humorous romance with Jane Austen!! I loved the relationship between Sophie and Jane. Their friendship is marvelous and reciprocal. I liked the romance of Jane and the way her experiences in 2020 alter her life but yet bring her back to her craft of writing. Entertaining and intelligent!!

This novel requires substantial suspension of disbelief. If you are not able to accept this, it may take you longer to become immersed in this title or it may not be for you.

In the opening of the story, Jane Austen (yes, that Jane) is twenty-eight years old. She is living in Bath with her family and she is a bit of a free spirit. Jane, though, is also acutely aware that she is not married and that marriage is expected of her. She meets someone who invites her to the Pump Room which is a location for proposals; however, the proposal never takes place. What is Jane to do? Well, in this author’s imagination, Jane travels to the future.

In (our) the present, Jane finds herself on a film set for a movie of Northanger Abbey. Of course, she does not at first understand that she is in a new time zone/period. She meets an actress, Sofia, and that actress’s brother, Fred, for whom she feels an attraction.

What will happen to each of these characters? Will readers enjoy being in 1820s England and the present day country? Will the characters find (or reawaken) a true love? Will Jane stay in (her) future or travel back in time to remain one of the most beloved of English authors. Read the book to find out.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

This book was admittedly a bit slow to start but it’s worth the extra push to get to know these characters! Such a unique and entertaining premise - the perfect escapist read for 2020!

3.5. This is not one for the Austen fanatics who are sticklers about historical details, but it's a fun read overall. It's split between two points of view--that of Jane, of course, and that of Sofia, an actress who perceives her fame as fading with her sex appeal--and by the end of the book I wondered whether it would have been a stronger book had it not focused so much on Sofia's career. I understand that the author works in film and that it's part of her expertise, but I'm not sure it added much to Jane's story. I liked Jane's character, though, and thought she handled the time travel with grace and just the right amount of confusion; while some of the effects of time travel were not explained well, the conceit moved the plot forward in a fun way.

Such an adorable book!

And hello unique concept!!

I know the ending needed to happen has it did but I wish their could have been a happier one.

Love the female main characters learn huge life lessons and find a place on contentment.

If you love Jane Austen this book is a must into her ‘love story’

Thank you Penguin Random House and Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my sassy review.

I am a HUGE Jane Austen fan, absolutely adore her. To be provided with an arc for a time-traveling Jane Austen after being jilted, I am onboard.

I thoroughly enjoy the witty language used by Jane Austen to describe the world around her and the information that she is taking in. I think if you are a true Austen fan, you will adore this book.

Do you need the characters to grow on you? Yes. But that is the way with all characters in 19th-century literature. You didn't just fall in love with them, you built a gradual relationship with them, a courting. I think this book handles that swimmingly.

This was such an interesting read! I loved every word and couldn’t put it down. It was quite unique and I loved the humor sprinkled throughout.

The perfect book for Jane Austen fans! Jane time travels from 1803 to 2020 to find her true love. It was such a charming, clever read. The first time Jack and Jane met was a scene straight from Pride and Prejudice. The reader is taken on a journey of everyday items we take for granted through Jane's experience of seeing them for the first time. Jane couldn't believe all the food that was available at the grocery store, didn't know how an escalator worked, was surprised by a cell phone and the ability for fast communication, and was fascinated to find her published books (books she hadn't written yet) were so loved. I marveled at the transformation each of the characters had as they worked to get Jane back to her own time period. There were a few modern issues I thought were out of character for Jane's time period, but it didn't ruin the story for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

This was such a cute read with a great concept and follow through. I really loved the characters & read it in one sitting!

There is not a Lit major alive who doesn’t know who Jane Austen is, and if I ever find one, they will be forced to eat a shoe. While we enjoy Jane Austen’s novels now, there is so much we don’t know about her personal life. We know something of her family life; her brother’s marriage to Eliza, Cassandra’s ill-fated situation regarding her fiance Tom, who passed away on a trip to the West Indies, as well as her family’s financial plight. Austen’s personal life, however, is ever the enigma, and while she never married, we don’t really know why. She did accept and then reject an offer from Harris Biggs-Wither, so there was the opportunity for her to do so, and yet, she decided to walk away.

This has led many to speculate that Austen chose to live by her pen, which meant that there was no room for marriage. While we may think the two don’t necessarily have to be exclusive, in Austen’s time, it would be difficult to find a husband who would be able to tolerate a novelist wife. It also begs the question: how did Austen manage to write such great romances if she herself never experienced one of her own?

Rachel Givney’s Jane in Love thus imagines a romantic encounter for Austen, but unlike the fictional spaces of Becoming Jane, which teases the possibility of a romance between Austen and a real historical figure like Tom Lefroy, Givney imagines a whole new scenario, which is Austen falling in love with a man from the 21st century. How would this even be possible? Well, with a little bit of magic and time travel.

When we meet Jane, she isn’t sure she has a future in writing, nor in love. Her novel First Impressions had been rejected, and one of her possible suitors ended up flaking on her, so she seeks out answers regarding her destiny, which leads her tumbling into the future. It is there she meets siblings Fred and Sofia Wentworth. Much of the hilarity present is definitely reading about Jane trying to navigate the 21st century, and Givney truly fleshes out how to someone like Jane, technology seems almost magical. The problem is, Jane finds herself stuck here, without any means of returning, and the more time she spends in this time period, the more she starts to disappear from history. She does find herself in quite the conundrum, because she is drawn to Fred the moment she lays eyes on him, and there is a quiet romance between the two that I quite enjoyed.

While Jane is supposedly the main character, the novel does feel just as much Sofia’s as it is Jane’s. Sofia agreed to be a part of a film adaptation of Northanger Abbey because she thought it would bring her closer to her estranged husband, who is the film’s director. She also finds herself struggling with her age, feeling cast aside for younger, more seemingly beautiful actresses. Weirdly enough, Sofia felt the more relatable figure, and we seem to spend more time with her than Jane. By Givney shaping her novel in such a way, it does feel like a bit of a callback to Sense and Sensibility, where both Jane and Sofia learn from each other and discover where they need to end up. It is quite the easter egg extravaganza, since just like the Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility references, Austenites will find echoes from Austen’s own novels embedded within Givney’s novel.

However, in the end, we know how this novel must conclude, in a way that is most unlike the ending of an Austen novel. Jane needs to make a decision, but it’s a decision she always knew she would make. Falling in love is wonderful, but if you have ever been a writer or creator, there is nothing quite like the satisfaction of knowing the impact your work will have, and for Jane, this impact is a sizable one – impossible to relinquish. I lament the loss along with Jane, but celebrate her choice and agency, which are perhaps far greater things than the possibility of romance.

I love this retelling of Jane Austin! I have never read the original, which is embarrassing for me, but I love this modern day spin of Jane having to learn to integrate herself into modern day society while also struggling to find love.

This is definitely a fun read!

After reading the synopsis I had high hope for this romance. Unfortunately it was quite a miss for me. My attention wandered and I did not feel a pull to the romance. I will not be sharing a review of this title outside of NetGalley.

Cute book for fans of Jane Austen. Jane Austen is discouraged by her search for love and takes a witch's help to look for her true love. She ends up zapped into the 21st century in the middle of a filming of her book Northanger Abbey. I loved Jane's dialogue-it was smart and witty, exactly like you'd expect. I did not love the story about Sofia-the actress who finds her and ultimately helps her. Sofia is redeemed from her earlier selfishness in the book but I found her parts not descriptive enough. She's written kind of flatly-you see her actions but don't get many of her thoughts or feelings. She meets this great guy Dave who helps her with Jane but the dialogue doesn't give you any clue to her intentions with Dave-is she flirting? Is she being rude? hard to tell. I also wasn't fond of Jane's insta-love with Sofia's brother Fred but I liked his character.
Overall cute book and worth a read for fans of Austen's.
Thanks to HarperCollins and NetGalley for this book in return for my honest review.

Jane in Love is a tale of time travel and of course love. What would happen when Jane Austen time travels to 2020 (poor thing, it should have been a different year as 2020 just sucks, am I right?). This is a cute romantic comedy for a Jane Austen adaptation with a twist.

This was my first Jane Austen book that I read and I’m happy I started with this! I think this had an amazing twist of time traveling along with Jane Austen, it was cool to watch those two world intertwine!

This was a sweet time-travel story. The first part was a little silly with Jane being confused or awed by every little thing, but the story quickly moved beyond that and it was so interesting to see how the story developed. I did feel that the love developed a little too quickly and was just kind of *there* all of a sudden. I would have liked more build and tension, which I felt was missing.

This is definitely not a story for JA purists, but casual Austen readers and lovers of the contemporary romance genre will enjoy this

Time travel, true love, Jane Austen, aging movie starlets, the beautiful English countryside.

Jane Austen who was recently jilted in a marriage proposal follows the advice of a spinster in town and goes to London to meet with a matchmaker who turns out to give her a spell that takes her to her true love. That happens to reside in 2020.

Jane ends up backstage at a movie shoot and meets Sofia and then Fred. After lots of confusion on everyone's parts they realize that she IS Jane Austen from 1803. After spending time with Fred she forms an attachment to him. But in the process she realizes the matchmakers' riddle that she can either have love or have her writing she can't have both.

Ok to not give too much away I will just point out this seems to be the neverending doom of women in working anywhere. You put the family on hold to work on your career then you are no longer the age to bear children but you have a great career. Or you have the family but don't have the career you want. Why can't we have both or all? 

It's always been my dream to be a mother and I know not everyone wants that. I see posts of people upset that her life was defined by a man. Well honestly in 1803 that's what they thought, and that's how i'm sure she was treated as a spinster. Even now if you "never married" people feel bad for you.

Before I met my husband and I was in my late 20s my Aunt's neighbor said "Oh you are the niece who never married?"  I just stared at her like wtf!

The author shows so many different types of women at different times of their life in different eras. All either supporting each other or reveling in their failure. As they say the more things change the more they stay the same. 

Sofia's relationship was so toxic and just curdled my stomach. I loved how she developed and became more comfortable in her older elderly 36 yo skin 😂