This Regency romance novel is definitely one of a kind. It did take me a little while to get used to it at the beginning, but towards the middle, that’s when I really started to love it! What initially drew me in was the premise of the story. I really enjoyed the premise of it and found it overall entertaining and fun! It had a little bit of a whimsical feel to it, which I loved. The banter and romantic tension between the two main characters were strong, in this slow burn romance. I really found this book to be quite clever! This book also comes with a lot of laughs! It is a medium paced read, has strong character development, lovable characters and is both plot and character driven. It is historical, beautiful, believable and well structured. I also absolutely loved the time travel in this story!

“The Austen Affair” is about Tess Bright, a struggling actress, who plays Catherine Moreland, in a cinematic adaptation of the “Northanger Abbey”. She is both wishing to revive her career and honor her late mother. Then we have Hugh Balfour, who plays the co star to Tess. He is already not fond of Tess. Then, something wild happens. They both get transported back to 200 years ago, in Regency era England, due to a tense run in on set with a space heater. They begin learning the social customs, navigate through grief with one another, then a bond between them begins to form. The bond they share ultimately ends up with them being in love. Overall I rate this a 4 out of 5 stars!

Content warnings include a sexually explicit sex scene, grief and family illness. Fans of Jane Austen, who also enjoy reading about time travel and loves romance comedies, would absolutely love reading this!

Thank you to NetGalley, author Madeline Bell and St. Martin's Press | St. Martin's Griffin for this digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

This book is expected to be published on September 16, 2025!

Austen lovers should enjoy this title. It was fun to see the surnames of secondary characters in Austen works show up in character names throughout the novel. The back to the future plot was handled deftly with strong family emotional bonds throughout. The banter between the two leads was enjoyable. The story lost it's pace in the last half, but it's a minor quibble. Library patrons should enjoy this book.

The Austen Affair by Madeline Bell is the story of Tess and Hugh, two actors picked to play the leads in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Hugh is a well-known method actor, this is Tess’s big break after a failed TV show, and the two can’t stand each other. An accident sends them back in time to the days of Jane Austen and they must work together to find their way home.

I loved this story! It was easy to follow and I had no problems connecting with either main character. It was very enjoyable to travel back in time with them and see how modern and past combine. The settings were beautiful, the banter sharp and entertaining, and the attraction palpable through the pages. Fans of Jane Austen and enemies-to-lovers will delight in this fun and heartwarming tale. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

The Austen Affair is a fizzy, time-traveling delight packed with wit, heart, and irresistible chemistry. Madeline Bell’s debut is a love letter to Jane Austen, the chaos of opposites-attract romance, and the magic of second chances—set against a hilariously charming Regency backdrop. Fans of enemies-to-lovers tropes and genre-bending rom-coms will find plenty to swoon (and laugh) over.

This book was so much fun. So many brilliant Easter eggs for Austen fans, an adorable romance between a bubbly young actress/Jane Austen superfan, and a seasoned British method actor. The main characters travel back in time and must rely on each other to make it through, falling in love in the process. Forced proximity, but silly, fun, and exciting. The romance was so sweet, and I loved both of our leads. I feel like a lot of romance heroines have some sort of complicated relationship with their parent, and Tess isn’t really an exception, but I think the way this book handles it adds a lot of heart to the story. The ending was a little strange and weirdly paced, but overall, it was a good read, for contemporary readers, Jane Austen lovers, and especially a mix of the two (I.E., me). It feels like the type of book that would be perfectly adapted for the screen, and I would be so sat in the theatre.

This was a mediocre book. The main character, Tess, was the only interesting character in the whole book. Her grief over the death of her mother gave her a dimension. Hugh was a cliche grumpy love interest. The setting felt like a dollhouse, with its plastic-like feel. There was no real feel to being in a place that was completely different from where they came from. The characters they meet feel like cardboard cutouts of cliche stock Regency characters.

A fabulous Regency time travel romance. Tess and Hugh are such relatable characters individually and the chemistry and story just make them shine. Just wonderful.!

Tess Bright and Hugh Balfour may both be Hollywood stars, but they couldn't be more different from each other. Cast as the leads in Northanger Abbey, the sunshine/grumpy duo is not in sync. Tess is recovering from the death of her mother, and now all on her own, and Hugh's family is navigating a health crisis.

When the two find themselves transported back in time and mistaken for Hugh's ancestor, they scramble to concoct a plausible explanation for their sudden appearance. While Tess is charmed to be living in a Jane Austen fantasy, Hugh lives in fear of ruining his ancestor's timeline with his actions. To get back to their own time they will need to rely on each other, and to do that they'll have to learn to trust each other first.

This was a fun homage to Jane Austen, I hope there will be more to come!

I loved the premise of this story! Two actors, Tess and Hugh, go back in time to the era of Jane Austen while portraying Northanger Abby characters. They pose as a Hugh's ancestor coming home from war and his fiancé. They both learn some valuable lessons while trying to get back home and are changed in the process. Wonderful, fun characters. Perfect setting. Tons of nods toward not just Northanger Abby, but all of Austen's books. Can't wait to suggest this one to our patrons!

2.75 rating. It lagged a little bit in the middle and towards the end. I loved the concept and conversations about greif but some parts felt a little too self-help/care for my taste.

The Austen Affair is a whimsical, genre-blending debut with a lot of banter, accidental time travel, and simmering enemies to lovers tension.

At the heart of the story is Tess Bright, a spirited actress trying to salvage her career and her selfworth by starring in a Northanger Abbey adaptation. Enter Hugh Balfour, her uptight and unimpressed co-star. The two clash immediately, leading to a freak on-set accident that hurls them back to Regency England, forcing them to rely on each other to survive, blend in, and figure out how to get home.

Both struggle with their own grief as they have to navigate the stress of living in the past. There are heartfelt moments mixed with funny moments as the two try to avoid historical faux pas and come to terms with the feelings they’re developing. There’s a lot of charm, and if you love a good grumpy/sunshine pairing you’ll eat up the slow-burn romance.

ARC provided by NetGalley

Wow -- I feel like we read a completely different book. And I do think it sort of weird that every review is 5 stars.

This book is silly. After reading about three chapters, I have no interest in moving forward. There is one scene where the heroine does a pretend faint and then is hyperventilating; then looks down and her breast are heaving and the hero is supposed to be reviving her. Funny -- not so much.
Or the scene where the hero - a vegetarian discovers that he is eating turtle soup and spits it out at the table -- again not funny.

Now they are off to look for electrical equipment to shoot them back to the future -- because of Mary Shelley and Frankenstein.

Life is too short to waste on books that don't hold your attention. DNF

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “The Austen Affair” by Madeline Bell, magical realism & romance

Tess Bright has just been humiliatingly fired from the teen sci-fi show she’s starred in for four seasons. Her only hope of a future in acting is her current role starring in an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abby. Unfortunately, her co-star is Hugh Balfour, a grumpy, British method actor who refuses to interact with her at all off screen.

When their differences finally come to blows, Tess stomps off and trips over the cord to a space heater. When Hugh tries to break her fall, the two end up getting electrocuted and shocked into the early 1800s.

The two end up spending a month in regency Hampshire, Jane Austin’s hometown. There are mistaken identities, scandals, and like any good Jane Austen story, a ball.

As the two navigate the new time period, trying to find a way to get home when electricity is not available, they quickly learn that their original impressions of each other were wrong and that the two of them make a great team, maybe one to last through the ages.

This was such a fun novel. I loved traveling with Tess and Hugh to Jane Austen’s world. There were plenty of laughs as they navigated the time period and the romance was swoony. I’m a Hugh Balfour fan, for sure. I love a quiet grump who is actually soft inside (which I’m sure stems from my teenage obsession with Mr Darcy!).

This is an open door romance with one explicit scene.

I received this Advanced Readers Copy via NetGalley. It releases on September 16, 2025.

I love all things Austen. I can identify with Tess and her mother in how much they love the books and adaptations of Austen's work. This book is like if Austenland (the film), Lost in Austen, and Miss Austen Regrets had a baby. I loved every minute of reading it.

In an attempt to make my ramblings about how much I loved this book more coherent, I've tried to break my thoughts into three groups.

The writing
The romance
The emotion

The Writing
While the writing is referential, it is also fresh. Bell manages to balance creating characters that are reminiscent of Austen's most famous characters while also making them feel like their own people. I also think that Bell did a service by acknowledging that modern perceptions of Regency womanhood are not necessarily what we read about in books.

I particularly loved the female characters that Tess and Hugh come into contact with throughout the book. Aunt Fanny and Cecelia, in particular, were such nuanced characters and provided a more in-depth examination of how women behaved during this period. It's not that we don't get nuance in Austen's original work, but the smaller details that provide a relatable human connection to the modern world (obviously) can be hard to draw in her work. By adding things like eye rolls, Bell was able to humanize these women.

It is details such as these that Bell so expertly interweaves throughout and adds depth to the story. She brought to life the world of Austen and structured the story in such a way that if one had no background knowledge on Austen, adaptations of her work, or the period in which she lived, they wouldn't lack in details. Bell does this so expertly that the information never seems forced. This is due in part to the way that Tess and Hugh interact, using humor that subtly provides context clues.

The Romance

I did appreciate the enemies-to-lovers aspect of this book. Although Northanger Abbey is the Austen work that is most central to the plot, there are clear nods to Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy in Tess and Hugh's relationship. I did feel a bit that Tess's strong personality throughout the book overshadowed Hugh a bit. That's to be expected as she is an extrovert and he is an introvert, and Bell leaned into Austen's practice of never writing a scene with just men. I did think the way that the relationship unfolded was quite beautiful, and although it was a slow burn, the chemistry and spice were there in small doses.

I also really appreciated how they were real people, and their backstories had multiple notes. Often in books where the author is writing about themes of grief that can consume the backstory (and occasionally the current story) and it's just that without any nuance. However, Bell demonstrates that grief doesn't leave you; you just build other things around it well throughout.

The relationship that Hugh and Tess built with George was also a very sweet aspect of their relationship. I loved how Hugh was protective of George as an older brother figure, and Tess connected with him based on their shared personality. George was such fun comic relief throughout the story.

The Emotion

Bell's writing so so emotive and complex. You could feel the tension between the characters rise and fall throughout the story. You also felt the annoyance of Hugh along with Tess, the disdain from Cecilia toward Tess, and the melancholic joy of George just coming off the page. This book made me feel as if I were reading an Austen novel. The character dynamics constantly gave new insights and layers to the plot that you find in an original Austen work, but updated them with pop culture references. I finished the book with a sense of who each of the characters was as a person, which is incredibly hard to do, as there were quite a few side characters that Bell was juggling throughout the book.

Conclusion
If you love Austen's work or adaptations of her work, I would recommend you read this book. It is a beautiful love letter to the source material and adaptations. Bell crafted a fun take on Austen's work. I highly recommend this book.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.


Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Death of a parent
Moderate: Sexual content, Dementia, War
Minor: Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail

This book was fine. The premise of the story felt unique and fun. I liked the whole time-travel element of the story. I kind of felt like all the good moments and happenings in the book was based on quotes from Austen, other great literary works or movie adaptations. All though it was a romantic story it didn't really bring anything new to the field of regency romance with a modern twist. I feel like the leads chemistry was kind of off. They went from hating each other in most of the book to being head over heels for each other in a minute. I also feel like it could have been quite a lot shorter. I feel like this book could have needed more yearning between the leads, instead of the insta-love that occurred when they finally settled their differences. Overall, if you're an Austen fan and want a light read, this might be for you.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for this eARC!

I immediately loved the premise. I also love grumpy/sunshine characters. I was really excited to read this one. And then I started reading it. It was really weird how often Tess admired her chest. ? I can usually write a decently lengthed review, but in this case - where I did not love the book - it would just be me filling my review with endless critiques. I am trying to be nicer. I am sure some people will love the book. I just was not one of them.

The premise of this book was so fun, and it was entertaining. I did feel like the plot meandered a lot and started to drag in the last third of the book. I also thought the argument the two mc's had in the third act was ridiculous.

I specifically waited to start The Austen Affair until after I’d read all the main Jane Austen novels for myself, and I’m glad I did. I knew this book was centred around a movie adaptation of Northanger Abbey, but there were references to most of the major books immediately since the main character and her mother were huge Austen fans. It was so lovely to read this book knowing who every Austen character was and really understanding the references.

And also the writing? So fun, so easy to read, so smart. I love enemies to lovers. It is evidently my favourite trope. I love books about the entertainment industry and cheeky lil historical rom-coms. The Austen Affair was tailor-made for me. I laughed, I cried, I never wanted it to end.

I had a blast reading this. I think it’s another ARC I’ll add to my physical collection (is being on NetGalley actually costing me money at this point?) on release day in September. Seriously, I would highly recommend this gem.

What a great read! I hadn't read a short book like this in a while, so the pacing was quite fast compared to my usual reads. This was a great mix of classics and a bit of sci-fi. Very cute, with a bit of romance and fun twists linking past to future. I've been recommending this to all my friends! Can't wait for publishing day!

This was a fun, heartfelt romp with a little bit of a dark side. I was thrilled to hear about actors filming a Northanger Abbey adaptation, as I find it's a very underrated Austen novel, but the time-travel element meant that we spent very little time in it. That fault was quickly forgiven as I saw Hugh and Tess help each other grow simply by coming to understand each other and help each other understand themselves. The open communication is a refreshing trend I'm glad to see more of in romance books, but never felt forced. The cast of historical characters was a bit hard to keep track of at times, but individual interactions with them provided great modern parallels. I think the ending felt a bit rushed, but overall it was a very enjoyable read.