Jane Bites Back

by Michael Thomas Ford

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if Jane Austen were alive today, she would be quite frustrated with the publishing industry.

Seriously. If Jane Austen were alive, she would be amazed by her popularity, as well as all of the Austen-inspired novels on the shelves. And she would totally want a piece of the royalties.

So, the premise of our novel, dear Reader, is that Jane is alive and well in upstate New York. She owns a bookshop, and she is known to all as Jane Fairfax. And wait, she’s not really “alive and well” so much as un-dead. Yes, it’s true; Jane Austen is still with us because she’s a vampire. Awesome!

Anyway, she has this novel, Constance, which appears to have been rejected by every publisher in the United States. Or at least most of them. She just received rejection letter number 116.

But all is about to change for our fair author. Someone, in his infinite wisdom, has recently decided that he wants to publish Constance. And he wants a lot of publicity for Jane and her novel. And that’s when everything starts to unravel for Jane.

First, the vampire who turned Jane (so many years ago) shows up in town. Then she is confronted by an old (really old) rival at a conference for romance writers. Can Jane keep it together long enough to sell her book? Will her true identity be revealed to anyone? Can she find happiness in her new publishing success? Read and find out!

I really, really enjoyed this novel. It combines two great elements: Jane Austen and vampires. And the author is quite clever in his plotting.

1/8/10