The Austen Escape
Page 1
Praise for Katherine Reay
“Katherine Reay’s writing shines in this modern tale that’s sure to please fans of regency fiction. Admirers of Jane Austen, especially, will delight in the delicious descriptions and elegant prose as the protagonist is transported to the English countryside, taking readers along for the ride. Both cleverly written and nicely layered, Reay’s latest proves to be a charming escape!”
—DENISE HUNTER, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF BLUE RIDGE SUNRISE ON THE AUSTEN ESCAPE
“At once sophisticated and smart . . . Clever and classy . . . Whether for the first-time Pride and Prejudice reader or the devotee with an ardent affection for all things Austen . . . The Austen Escape is an equally satisfying retreat into the wilds of Jane’s beloved Regency world. In scenes brilliantly woven with Austen’s classic characterization, Reay goes beyond courtship and manners to explore modern-day scenarios, grappling with themes of brokenness and loss, the weight of decisions and consequences, and the anchor of faith through difficult circumstances. As amiable as an Austen novelist could be—but with a pen just as witty—Katherine Reay proves she’s ready to become Jane to a whole new generation of women.”
—KRISTY CAMBRON, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE LOST CASTLE AND THE HIDDEN MASTERPIECE SERIES
“Wildly imaginative and deeply moving, The Austen Escape is Katherine Reay at her very best.”
—BILLY COFFEY, AUTHOR OF STEAL AWAY HOME
“The Austen Escape has the remarkable ability to be both lighthearted and gripping. The dramatic elements are first rate, the characters even finer. Wonderful writing. Highly recommended.”
—DAVIS BUNN, BESTSELLING AUTHOR
“Reay’s sensually evocative descriptions of Italian food and scenery make this a delight for fans of Frances Mayes’s Under the Tuscan Sun.”
—LIBRARY JOURNAL, STARRED REVIEW, ON A PORTRAIT OF EMILY PRICE
“Another rich, multilayered story from Katherine Reay. This is a lovely tale that will nest in the reader’s heart and won’t let go.”
—RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4½ STARS, TOP PICK! ON A PORTRAIT OF EMILY PRICE
“Romance novelist Reay (Dear Mr. Knightley) crafts another engaging and sprightly page-turning bildungsroman. The American-goes-to-Europe plot is a real chestnut, familiar but nicely revived by Reay, who hits a sweet spot between adventure romance and artistic rumination; the novel finds a fantastic groove where chick lit meets Henry James.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW, ON A PORTRAIT OF EMILY PRICE
“A Portrait of Emily Price is a portrait of grace and love. Reay expertly weaves a story rich in taste and sight, wrapping it all with sigh-worthy romance.”
—RACHEL HAUCK, NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE WEDDING DRESS
“Katherine Reay is a remarkable author who has created her own subgenre, wrapping classic fiction around contemporary stories. Her writing is flawless and smooth, her storytelling meaningful and poignant. You’re going to love The Brontë Plot.”
—DEBBIE MACOMBER, #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
“Book lovers will savor the literary references as well as the story’s lessons on choices, friendship, and redemption.”
—BOOKLIST ON THE BRONTË PLOT
“Quotations and allusions flow freely in Reay’s third tribute to the female giants of English literature. Fans may find themselves unearthing their classic novels after savoring this skillfully written homage.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW, ON THE BRONTË PLOT
“Reay treats readers to a banquet of flavors, aromas, and textures that foodies will appreciate, and clever references to literature add nuances sure to delight bibliophiles. The relatable, very real characters, however, are what will keep readers clamoring for more from this talented author.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW, ON LIZZY & JANE
“Katherine Reay’s Dear Mr. Knightley kept me up until 2:00 a.m.; I simply couldn’t put it down . . . If you’ve read Jean Webster’s charming epistolary novel, Daddy Long Legs, you’ll know where this is going. Webster wrote her book in 1919; Dear Mr. Knightley is a brilliant update. I absolutely loved the story of a rigidly bookish young woman who comes to know herself—not to mention the real Mr. Knightley.”
—ELOISA JAMES, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ONCE UPON A TOWER
“[Dear Mr. Knightley] is an intriguing story told through letters the heroine writes to her benefactor. It is enjoyable to watch her learn about life, gain maturity, and, in the end, find love. A lesson readers will learn from this engaging novel is that it’s not so much where you come from, but where you’re going that matters.”
—RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4½ STARS, TOP PICK!
“Book nerds, rejoice! Dear Mr. Knightley is a stunning debut—a first-water gem with humor and heart. I can hardly wait to get my hands on the next novel by this gifted new author!”
—SERENA CHASE, USA TODAY’s HAPPY EVER AFTER BLOG
Other Novels by Katherine Reay
Dear Mr. Knightley
Lizzy & Jane
The Brontë Plot
A Portrait of Emily Price
The Austen Escape
© 2017 by Katherine Reay
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Epub Edition September 2017 ISBN 9780718077945
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017948841
Printed in the United States of America
17 18 19 20 21 LSC 5 4 3 2 1
For MBR and MAR,
A hero and a hero-in-training.
This one is for you both, with all my love . . .
[A novel] is . . . only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineations of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humor, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.
—Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
And for yours, Miss Austen, the world salutes you . . .
Contents
Praise for Katherine Reay
Other Novels by Katherine Reay
Characters from Jane Austen’s Novels referenced in The Austen Escape
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
An Excerpt from Dear Mr. Knightley
About the Author
Characters from Jane Austen’s Novels referenced in The Austen Escape
Northanger Abbey
Catherine Morland—Catherine is very intelligent and kind. She is also naïve, as she has had little exposure outside of her narrow world, but she learns to think, question, and take ownership for her story throughout this novel.
Isabella Thorpe—Calling Isabella a manipulative gold digger wouldn’t be off the mark. It would, however, not tell the whole story. Isabella is a beautiful young woman who relishes adoration and flattery. She craves attention. She also has no clue what she wants in life—besides wealth, of course.
Henry Tilney—Clever, perceptive, and kind, Henry is often a conundrum to those around him. He comes across as occasionally patronizing, but his gentle teasing and constant questioning come from a good heart.
Persuasion
Anne Elliot—A character Austen described as “almost too good for me.” She is one of Austen’s older and most beloved heroines. At twenty-seven, she thinks love and her “bloom” have passed her by. Not so, dear Anne . . .
Captain Wentworth—An officer with courage, sense, and sensitivity. He is a new kind of hero—honored for his personal qualities and professional acumen rather than his birthright. Like many Austen heroes, he has a lesson to learn as well. He must forgive and conquer his own pride in order to find love and happiness.
Lady Russell—Lady Russell is a rich, well-meaning, practical woman who adores Anne Elliot. If her advice is misguided, it still comes from a true love for Anne and respect for her family.
Sir Walter Elliot—“Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot’s character; vanity of person and of situation.” That is all one needs to know of Sir Walter’s character.
Pride and Prejudice
Elizabeth Bennet—Considered almost a perfect heroine, Elizabeth is lovely, smart, witty, wise, and kind. She believes her judgments are accurate and sound—and she is completely wrong. Fortunately for everyone, she discovers this. “How despicably I have acted . . . Till this moment I never knew myself.” Unlike other Austen characters, once faced with this defect, Lizzy mends her ways and all ends well.
Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley—These two simply belong together.
Lady Catherine de Burgh—If vanity is the beginning and end of Sir Walter, pride is the beginning and end of Lady Catherine. She tops that by being haughty, mean, and closed-minded as well—and gives a headache to everyone around her.
Emma
Emma Woodhouse—Handsome, clever, and rich. Three things everyone must know about Emma Woodhouse. One also needs to know she messes up a lot and gets almost everything wrong. In the end, she sees life more clearly and values friends better, and is rewarded with “perfect happiness” in her marriage.
Mr. Knightley—As a model of common sense and honor, one might find Knightley too good. Yet he marries these qualities with kindness, generosity, and such a devoted love for Emma that readers can’t help but swoon.
Sense and Sensibility
Marianne Dashwood—Perhaps originally intended as a caricature of a person with a great emotional appreciation of the arts, Marianne matures throughout her story and brings balance to her life with a touch of sense.
Mrs. Jennings—A thoughtful and generous woman with the singular aim of enjoying the young people and seeing them all married. Her sense of humor can offend—Austen dubbed it vulgar, which her readers understood as common and unsophisticated—but that should be forgiven when weighed against her warm heart and solid good sense.
Edward Ferrars—A kind, honorable, quiet man. The important fact to note is that he was secretly engaged, for four years, to the young, beautiful, and opportunistic Lucy Steele. The aforementioned qualities kept him from breaking the engagement. Luckily, when he lost all his money, she did it for him.
Mansfield Park
Mary Crawford—Think of Mary this way: split the bright and brilliant Elizabeth Bennet in half and give all her wisdom to Fanny Price (Mansfield Park’s heroine) and all her sparkle to Mary. Mary leaves her story as she enters it, and causes great disruption in the middle.
Chapter 1
How can I help?”
The world stilled. It wasn’t the first time I wondered how one voice, one presence, could quicken the air and simultaneously stop all motion.
Nathan.
I offered a stiff and awkward smile as he propped himself against my desk. His knees bent and touched mine as he handed me a Starbucks cup.
“Thank you.” I sipped and rolled my chair back a few inches to break contact. A clear head requires distance. “You can’t. An engineer is only as good as what she designs and . . . my project is a failure.”
The technology and math worked. The science worked. The breakdown was in the design. In the subjective, not the objective—it was in me.
Nathan nodded—a long, slow motion. I knew that look. He was trying to think up a plan, and if this had been another time or place, or I’d been another girl, I’d have hugged him for the effort. But I was ready to pay the price.
“It has potential,” he said, “but Karen has other goals for the company right now. Even so, I’ll talk to her.”
I shook my head to clear it of his optimism and my lingering illusions. “There’s no talking to Karen. There’s no working with her either.”
“That won’t do, Mary.” Nathan stared at me. “You’ve got to try.”
“Why don’t you plead for it yourself?” Moira said.
We’d spent the last half hour leaning against her cubicle’s outer wall and staring across twenty other cubicles to the closed conference room door. I wondered that the sheer force of our concentration didn’t burst it open.
“Karen will do what she wants.”
“So you expect Nathan to do all the heavy lifting?”
“That’s insulting and vaguely sexist. I can take care of myself.” My look dared her to laugh.
She kindly banked her smile. “Good to know, as I was thinking more of insanity than anything else. What’s that definition again?”
“Very funny,” I said, but she didn’t smile. “Fine. Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.”
“And so we wait.” She, too, kept her eyes on the door.
“Nathan’s suggestions weren’t going to work. First, he wanted me to ask Benson and Rodriguez for help, as if I couldn’t solve the problems myself. Karen would’ve jumped all over that. She’s itching for a reason to fire me. Besides, she never would have approved their hours. And then Nathan wanted—”
“Stop.” Moira held a hand to my face. “It wasn’t so much about solving a problem as it was letting them in. We’re a team. At least that’s what that poster over there says.” She pointed across the floor to where Lucas, our head programmer with an affinity for inspirational quotes, had hung
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK
“You help them all the time. What were you doing here last weekend?”
“Rodriguez needed a hand. It was no big deal.” I waved away her comparison.
“For two full days . . . And he’d do the same for you in a heartbeat. You know I’m right.”
The door opened.
My heart skipped a beat as Nathan emerged. It always did when he appeared. But this time he was coming from a meeting that determined the fate of my project and possibly my job.
He looked around and paused when his gaze crashed into mine. One steady look, then he turned away to speak to Craig.
“That was not good,” I whispered to Moira. I rounded into my cubicle and flopped into the chair. “Karen killed it. Nathan looked like the grim reaper.”
Moira’s chuckle followed me. “Nathan is just a consultant who will soon be gone. You should have been watching Craig, the CEO who m
akes the final decisions.”
“Wrong. I should have been watching my new boss. Karen will be CEO any day now. But—”
Another voice cut in with a soft “Hey, Moira.”
“Nathan.” Her brusque acknowledgment silenced and prepared me.
Nathan stepped into my cubicle as Moira exited it. He leaned against my credenza. “We should talk.”
I watched Moira drop from view into her own cubicle, but I knew she was still listening. Everyone was. In our open office plan, everyone heard everything.
The overt eavesdropping used to breed gentle teasing and foster camaraderie. Now there was an odd silence. We strained to hear one another. Sometime in the past year, we had shifted from a mind-set of abundance to one of scarcity—any information you gleaned might be that charged tidbit that saved your job.
“Good or bad?” I worked to keep my voice low and unemotional. Any added professionalism was lost as the bun I’d twisted my hair into fell over my eyes. The wire had pulled loose for the third time that day. I was losing my touch.
My hair dropped into a straight curtain of dark brown. I blew it out of my eyes and found Nathan reaching for the red twist of wire. I snatched for it as soon as he straightened.
“It’s electrical wire. The plastic coating makes for good hair ties.” I bent it back and forth as if to prove my point.
“So I’ve observed.” Nathan smiled. His smile, so unlike mine, was never stiff and always reached his eyes. Now it spread across his face and dug one dimple into his right cheek. For a moment, I forgot We should talk.
He gazed over the divider walls at the expanse of cubicles, then looked back to me. “Walk with me?” He was already moving away before I answered.
I yanked my hair into a ponytail, secured it again with the red wire, and hurried after him. Halfway to the door, one of my ballet flats slipped off, and I skipped along while pulling it back on.
Nathan didn’t turn, didn’t glance right or left; he just walked across the floor and out the side glass door. He stopped outside as if to let his body adjust to the Texas sun and heat. His blue oxford reflected the light. It matched the sky. It also made him look almost formal in WATT’s uber-casual environment. I glanced into Lucas’s cubicle as I hopped by—he wore what looked like pajamas.