I tend to be a little skeptical on books that have Jane Austen in the title. There are so many books with Jane Austen that tend to be just okay. This book is the expectation. The book is fun with a great storyline.

I love Jane Austen - so many of us do - so it is probably no surprise that I enjoyed this story too.

I thought this book was so much fun from beginning to end! Emma has broken up with Blake, but unfortunately is stuck working with Blake's younger brother Lucas...who turns out not to be so bad afterall. But with Emma starting to have feelings for Lucas, who has loyalty toward Blake, who is starting to realize that he was an idiot for letting Emma go--Emma's life gets very complicated, very quickly.

Emma's voice was fun and relatable, and I adored Lucas. I enjoyed seeing inside his life and what drove him to make the decisions he made. My favorite part was when Emma met Lucas and Blake's mom--and hearing what their mom said about Jane Austen. It made me want to stand up and cheer! I especially loved seeing all the connections to different Jane Austen novels (and even to Jane's life!) which were really fun for a Jane fan.

A Sweet, Fun Romance
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book – I’m not always a fan of contemporary romance, but I do love me some Jane Austen, and I was in the mood for something a little lighter. This book definitely delivered.



Emma heads out to surprise her boyfriend, knowing that she’s getting a proposal. Turns out, Blake wasn’t proposing, had another girl over, and wasn’t really that nice about it. When Emma leaves with no real way back to the city, she’s rescued by Lucas, who is apparently a professional rescuer, as they’re sidetracked to rescue a young girl who Emma suspects is his illegitimate daughter who he’s left in squalor while he lives richly. Of course, Emma and Lucas are thrown together at work the next Monday, and if you don’t know where that’s going, you’ve never read a contemporary romance novel.



Things progress, as things often do, but for some reason, no one can take the steps necessary to jump that line. It’s a bit inexplicable, especially considering this isn’t actually a Regency novel. The most surprising turn of events in the entire book (this isn’t even a real spoiler) is that Blake, in spite of his poor introduction to us, is actually a Really Nice Guy.



To be honest, the real story thread that I cared about was that of Emma’s bff Silvia. There was something going on there, and Emma was not asking enough questions about it. I’m sure it’s a setup for a sequel, but that sidebar was the main course, if you ask me.

“All feelings are legitimate in the long-term, sweetie. All feelings stir together the seconds and minutes and hours that make us us.”
Silvia knows what she’s talking about, and I want to know what’s going on with her when she’s off stage.

Overall, this was a fun, light read. It was exactly what you expect from contemporary romance, and because of that, I was not disappointed. I’d definitely recommend to anyone looking for something sweet and light.

Our poor heroine has decided romance should look like Jane Austen’s depictions. Who wouldn’t want that? Well, some of it, anyway. Sadly for her, she doesn’t find it to be true as modern-day men often do not act like Jane’s fictional heroes. I loved this premise.

The author has a strong writing voice and includes great prose. I liked that the story was written in first person, one of my favorite narrative styles. The heroine’s voice is a mixture of formal and modern, which was well done.

Readers who are familiar with Jane’s characters will get the most out of this book. There was a lot of potential here, but unfortunately, the book didn’t hold my interest past 15 percent. I wish the author and publisher all the best.

First of all, you must know one thing about me. It’s that I absolutely ADORE Jane Austen. I know it sounds cliché but she really is one of my favorite author. So obviously, the blurb of this book appealed to me. But I won’t lie and admit that I’m not fond of love triangles and when I read about Emma‘s love interest being the brother of her actual boyfriend, I was a bit skeptical. Turns out, it worked! And I wasn’t put off by it at all.

At the start I was a little confused about Emma talking about her break-up with Jane Austen but what is certain is that I was hooked anyways and I wanted to know more about her story. Emma is an endearing character. She has a painful memory about her mother which you could feel so strongly it hurts. She’s compassionate, hard-working, loyal and just so though, it’s admirable.

I love the bond she instantly forms with Lucas. You can feel their connection immediately. But most of all, I absolutely love her relationship with Blake, which is really surprising. At the start you won’t get why I just said that but as you keep reading, you’ll understand and please when you do, let’s just talk about it because I thought it was wonderful and I admired both even more for this. All the secondary characters were great, I loved the Hamptons, April, Silvia and Jeremy.

About the story, it was the sweetest contemporary romance. There’s no explicit intimate scenes and I normally don’t mind them but it’s been so long since I’ve read something just sweet and romantic like this story. You can just feel the love.

Also, special mention to Caroline Hampton and her speech about Jane Austen. I totally agree with her and if you’re a fan of this wonderful woman and author, you’ll love this book. All the references are a really nice touch.

My only tiny disappointment is that I felt the end was a bit rushed. I’d have loved it for it to be dragged some more. But, oh well, all good things must come to an end.

Sadly this was not a book that I enjoyed or found easy to read.

Julie Wright’s Lies Jane Austen Told Me is a contemporary romance told from the first person point of view of Emma Pierce, a California-based marketing executive for a growing gym/lifestyle company, who is looking for love but mostly married to her work. When a weekend at her boyfriend Blake’s family home ends in disaster before it even begins, Emma is forced to rely on the kindness of her now-ex’s brother, Lucas, to make her way back home. A stop in a shady neighborhood on the way to the train station so Lucas can take care of some business has her believing the worst about him and churns up sad memories of her childhood.

When Emma’s company unexpectedly hires Lucas as a consultant, she is forced to travel to the East Coast with him to scope out new locations, and it’s not long before they grow close. Their similar upbringings and their fierce determination help them forge a bond, but Emma can’t reconcile this side of Lucas with the man she first met — and she can’t understand why he keeps trying to get her to forgive his brother and give their relationship another try. It’s almost as if her life is a modern-day Austen novel, but Emma can’t forgive Jane for making her believe heroes like Mr. Darcy really exist when such lofty expectations have always left her brokenhearted.

Lies Jane Austen Told Me is a cute book that touches on some tough topics like abandonment, homelessness, and addiction, but there is more than enough romance and humor to keep it from feeling too heavy. I liked getting to know Emma through the first person narrative, watching her make mistakes and later learn from them, and I felt as much in suspense as she was to see how it all played out. It was easy to see Austen’s influence on the plot and characters, from the strong main characters to their misunderstandings to the friendship between Emma and Silvia, who serves as Emma’s sounding board throughout much of the novel. There was a place toward the end where it felt like the drama between Emma and the brothers was a little dragged out, but the pace soon picked up again and the ending more than made up for it. I enjoyed watching Emma figure things out and find her way back to Jane.

a book where the main character loves jane austen?

SIGN ME UP.

but. problems.

look, i got an ARC from netgalley, thanks netgalley! and i KNOW you shouldn't judge based on the uncorrected proof, especially errors and such, but lord i almost DNF'd this on the first page because the formatting was AWFUL. random letters would be capitalised, but never ones that were supposed to be. drove me bonkers. i sincerely hope they fixed that before it was published.

i could handle all that, except there were two things that i was just like what the actual shit. the misspelling of bennet as bennett and knightley as knightly. seriously? SERIOUSLY? is this real life?

i think the synopsis was a bit misleading, though to be fair i didn't really read it all right before i started reading the book. i'm sure i read the synopsis when i requested it from netgalley but my memory is horrible so i normally re-acquaint myself right before i start a book, i didn't this time. i'm glad i didn't because there are things 'spoiled' in the synopsis that don't come up for quite a bit in the book, and if i had known they were coming, i'd have been annoyed.

i am also glad because i misunderstood what i was getting in regards to the triangle. i thought it was she dated blake, they broke up, she met his brother and that was weird and conflict-y. but instead, blake tries to get her back.i know that's in the synopsis, so again, this would have been solved if i'd re-read it, but it just didn't make sense. we never really knew or liked blake before they broke up, so him trying to get back with her only annoyed me, you know? and then all of a sudden he changes on a dime and is like, the best friend ever. after we find out that he only tried to get back with her because lucas convinced him to try. what. it was just odd and weird and unnecessary.

also, this book was clean, which was definitely fine, but meant that there was an elephant in the room .... were blake and emma ever.. ahem, intimate? because even if lucas is adopted that shit is weird yo.

definite points for everything jane austen, obviously. the end where he quotes emma? swoontastic for reals.

overall i didn't hate it, but i didn't love it, probably wouldn't recommend it and will likely forget about it soon except when i randomly remember the rage inducing formatting.

I tried to finish this like eight times - I really love Jane Austen, and I really wanted to engage, but I could not

Lies Jane Austen Told Me by Julie Wright

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

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Julie Wright brings her readers a funny and wonderful look at the fictional expectations we often make for ourselves and our relationships – and how those expectations can be changed for the better by the right person at the right time.

Let’s just get this out of the way: every girl who has read Jane Austen loves the characters she created and we are all looking for our Austen-akin hero to come sweeping to our lives. The interesting part comes if we have become so focused on what we “think” our love should look like that we might miss the real love that is right in front of our face. This is the concept that Julie Wright strives to share with her readers and I, for one, really enjoyed her story. As a fellow Jane Austen lover and frequent watcher of the BBC adaptations of said author I was so excited to read this book that was recently offered to me. Ms. Wright begins her story in fine form with her main character in the midst of a dilemma: Emma Pierce thought to surprise her boyfriend Blake Hampton at his parents home for July 4th. But things do not go as planned – for one thing, Blake’s parents are not home and he is entertaining another woman for dinner…..alone. Heartsick over the cruel explanation Blake gives, Emma determines to go straight home (a several hour journey), even if it is after 10pm. As she is storming out of the gates of the Hampton home, Blake’s adopted brother Lucas insists on giving her a ride to the train station. Grudgingly accepting the offer, Emma hopes this will be the last she will see of the Hampton family. Little does she know that her life is going to become much more interesting – all thanks to Lucas. Emma is the CMO of the Kinetics Gym facilities, a job she loves in totality. And she is excited about the new direction the CEO wants to take the company: to expand to the East Coast within the next year. But when she learns that a location consultant is going to be brought in to work with her, Emma finds herself fighting anger and frustration at her boss’s lack of confidence in her abilities. And to further discover that the consultant is Lucas Hampton, well, that is just too much! However, Emma quickly discovers that Lucas is not there to take her job; he likes his own just fine, thank you very much. As they begin the touring of the facilities currently in existence, Lucas is impressed with the care and diligence Emma puts into her efforts, from remembering everyone’s name to the complete knowledge she has of what Kinetics has to offer its clients, not only in the gym but the cafe and shops as well. And when Emma and Lucas must make the transcontinental flight to the East Coast, Emma offers Lucas real care and distraction from his air sickness. But as close as they grow throughout this endeavor, Lucas is determined not to get in the way of his brother getting back together with Emma. Add to all this the fact that Lucas’ real sister has abandoned her daughter to his care, that Blake doesn’t really want to renew his relationship with Emma, and that the rest of the Hampton family would like to see Lucas and Emma together, and this story is a crazy-wonderful whirlwind of a ride. Not having read any of Ms. Wright’s works before now, I was curious to see how she would go about building correlations between the Regency period of time and the current period. I was pleased to see that although she did have some comparisons to make and conclusions to draw that would tie her story to those of Austen, Ms. Wright created a thoroughly new and interesting plot. In this time of health consciousness it was nice to see the more human side of those in that business. Often we are bombarded with the sales-pitch side of gyms and memberships but never see beyond that to the business side of a company. Ms. Wright presented a legitimate look at how business works while also bringing the lives of her characters into full color. Along with her realistic writing she brought a good deal of sarcasm and witty phrasing. I laughed a lot as I “watched” Emma slog through one situation after another and found myself also identifying with her thoughts along the way. Additionally, I was impressed with the styling of the plot too – I was fairly certain of the ending but the way in which the book made its way there was not predictable. I would describe it more but I don’t want to ruin my favorite part of the story for someone else. I was also impressed that Ms. Wright kept her romance clean and without raunchiness. Its not often I come across “non-inspirational” stories that “keep it clean” so that was a wonderful surprise. Ms. Wright’s ability to bring some scenes from my favorite Austen books was a unexpected added detail that made me smile and laugh. And her secondary characters give the main ones a run for their money as they frequently had some of the best lines in the story. I have already looked into reading some of Ms. Wrights other stories and hope they will be as enjoyable as this one. I will certainly be highly recommending this book to others and am planning to purchase a physical copy of the book with my next book order. Thank you Ms. Wright for such a fun and wonderful story!

I received this E-Book free of charge from Shadow Mountain Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. I will receive no fiscal compensation from either company for this review.

As soon as I saw the back cover copy for this book, I knew I had to read it. It sounded so good!

Emma is a big Jane Austen fan---until she realizes that maybe happily-ever-afters aren't meant for everyone. Romance and dashing heroes seem to be the stuff of fiction, but Emma still has that sliver of hope. Her boyfriend, Blake, has invited her home to meet his parents and her friends and co-workers think that he might propose! Emma surprises him, but he gives her an even bigger surprise. The night ends with a slap across the face that even his great-grandchildren will feel! Emma walks away with her head held high, but fate isn't done with her yet. Her now ex-boyfriend's brother shows up at her office a few days later, hired to be a consultant at the company, and the bumpy journey to love truly begins. You won't be able to put this story down!

I loved Emma and how real she felt. She made wrong decisions, she overthought things, and yet she tried to stay true to herself. I enjoyed how there were so many nuances to the backstory for Emma and how she related not only to the men in her life, but also her co-workers and her best friend. I also loved Lucas. He was such a complicated hero and trying so hard to make a difference in the lives of the people he loved. But he had his own issues to work out, which made his story so compelling and kept the tension high, wondering how it would end! I won't give anything away, but I stayed up waaay too late to see how it all turned out, and it was so worth it.

I really hope the author writes the best friend, Silvia's story, so we can return to this world and all its characters again. It was so good!

I need an intervention. Someone needs to stop me from wanting to read books that reference Jane Austen.

This one isn’t bad, but Jane and her apparent lies have very little to do with anything. Sure there’s hints of Austen’s plots, but there’s also hints of Austen’s plots in 80% of romances on the market and they don’t try and cash in on her name with their titles. (Well, some do, granted, which is why I need the invention.)

Emma believes her boyfriend, Blake, is going to propose; instead she catches him entertaining another woman. Fleeing the scene, she meets Blake’s brother, Lucas, who chivalrously sees her home. A few days later she meets Lucas again when her boss hires him as a consultant who will partner up with Emma at work.

I’m not a huge fan of love triangles. This one is written more sweet than sexy, which was a little unrealistic in a way. As in, Emma assumed Blake was going to pop the question, so one would have to expect they’d had sex at some time during their relationship. But there was no mention of it. If you have a younger reader looking to start something in the chick lit/romance genre, this one could be a winner.

Wright also adds in another conflict in the shape of a child, giving Emma a chance to prove to Lucas she really is a wonderful woman or something... *yawn* Actually this is another sure sign that the target audience for the book is younger and less grumpy than me.

There are a few fun moments in this book, but overall it’s pretty forgettable.

3 out of 5

Nice use of the Jane Austen references in this book. Good character development, although a little slow with the plot. I know a lot of our library patrons will enjoy this one.

I'm a big Jane Austen fan and a complete romantic at heart. I love the way that Julie Wright brings such a beloved classic to a contemporary light and gives this age-old story a slightly new twist. By doing so, my heart was happy because I could feel the comfort of an old familiar favorite but the exhilarating freshness was something new.

Have you ever taken someone's words as law and then been disappointed when it turns out they weren't as magical as you thought they were? That's kind of what happens to Emma. She is a great character, let me just say. On one hand, she's very competent and strong, but on the other hand, she only needs to be loved and when her boyfriend, Blake, disillusions her with his fishy ways, she goes as far as to renounce Jane Austen. *gasp!* The cast of characters is pleasurable and I loved getting to know Lucas, Blake's brother, better, especially as he's thrown together with Emma through their jobs. In fact, I daresay that Lucas's vague persistence nearly made me swoon a few times.

This story really resonated with me and I adored it all. The middle portion was slightly slower, but I honestly couldn't read it quickly enough. I especially loved the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. Sometimes hard things happen to great people and I love how both Emma and Lucas are able to triumph over their pasts. This is a great read for any Austen lover.

Content: mild romance

*I received a copy, which had no influence on my thoughts and opinions.*

It wasn't what I was expecting based on the tiltle, but I was presently surprised. The Jane Austen elements of the plot are subtle, rather than 'in your face' and the main story focuses on Emma who is a modern business woman with a love for all things Austen. Despite the main characters name, this story is an homage to Austen's work and to modern Janeites, rather than a modern retelling. While this book is aimed at Janeites, you don't have to be a fan to enjoy this story.

I've not really read many of the Jane Austen books but know just enough abut them in passing to be dangerous! The title is a little misleading if you think that her books were about finding a husband so you could settle down and become a wife and mother. In reality (as we find out in the book), she is teaching women to speak their minds and be independent, but you really have to dig for that.

But overall this is a romance novel and one that I enjoyed. While you can figure out how it is going to end up, there are a few twists that I didn't see coming and you are left hanging wondering about a few characters until much later in the book. I liked Emma being torn between two men and trying to figure out who really was best for her in the long term.

The only thing I didn't like was trying to figure out what CMO meant - Chief Marketing Officer. Usually authors will not shorten to the abbreviation until they have at least spelled it out once and I don't recall seeing it spelled out.

Definitely a fun read that is perfect for Jane Austen fans!!

One star only to send review. See notes to publisher

Such a fun story! I loved how Austen was brought into the contemporary world, influencing Emma (even after the "renouncement") and showing why her classics are so well-loved and still relevant. I'm not generally a fan of love triangles, but since I knew from the synopsis that Lucas and Emma are meant to be together, I was able to view the rest as providing conflict and obstacles to their relationship. I loved the friendship they shared and couldn't wait for them to figure things out and get together! While there is plenty of fun banter and snarky thoughts, there are also deeper themes that are explored and I finished the book with a happy sigh :)

(I received a complimentary copy of the book; all opinions in this review are my own)