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Guests | October 20, 2009

A Practical Matter

2 comments By Vincent McCaffrey

It was in a letter of 1897, about his cousin James Ross Clemens, that Mark Twain famously noted that "the report of my death was an exaggeration." He... Continue »

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1. 
   $16.80 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

   Hound: A Mystery

   Vincent McCaffrey

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Susan Wiget, June 6, 2009

This hilarious romp of a time travel novel is written in contemporary style but with a decidedly Regency setting. After reading the blurb, I expected the novel to begin in the twenty-first century, but characteristic of twenty-first century novels, it plunges directly into the action, with the protagonist, “Jane Mansfield” waking up in strange surroundings after a riding accident. The trouble is, this is no longer the real Jane Mansfield but Courtney Strong, a twenty-first century woman trapped in early nineteenth-century Jane Mansfield’s body. The plot reminded me of both Pride and Prejudice and Doctor Who.

While the writing style is contemporary, the richly described setting is straight out of a Jane Austen novel, and the characters appropriately speak as if they’re from a Jane Austen novel. Jane’s mother in particular comes across as a character one would expect to find in a novel by Austen; she is narcissistic and devoid of affection or kindness toward her daughter. The character Louisa is reminiscent of Mrs. Jennings in Sense and Sensibility but proves to be rather more sinister.

No novel by Austen would include such details as the protagonist desperately needing to go pee and the servant presenting her with a chamber pot. Nor would an Austen novel involve the protagonist uttering a lewd joke to a man who proposes to her. As I read, I both laughed and felt painfully embarrassed alongside the main character.

On a more serious side, the main character sprinkles the narration with feminist analysis of the era in which she has found herself trapped in more than one sense. She is also appalled by how hygienically challenged Regency society is.

This is a delightful and insightful novel that is almost impossible to put down.

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