Ever since the time-bending, body-swapping Austen Addict novels were published by Penguin in the US and Bloomsbury in the UK to great success, we have envisioned them as a TV series. Having defined the books’ web presence via creating a popular web series, a series of book trailers, and the janeaustenaddict.com book site, Rigler Creative is now developing a major TV series based on the Austen Addict novels.
After forging an option deal and collaborating with Tandem Communications, the StudioCanal company famous for its Pillars of the Earth miniseries based on Ken Follett’s internationally bestselling novel, Rigler Creative has forged new partnerships with veteran hitmakers to realize a shared vision of a TV series based on the Austen Addict books. We are excited to be working closely with best-selling author Laurie Viera Rigler on the pilot script and show bible.
Praise for the Austen Addict novels
“Perceptive.”—USA Today(review of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict)
“Delightful…romantically suspenseful”– Publishers Weekly(review of Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict)
“Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict…is great fun…I spent a blissful day with it.”—The Guardian
“Both books are absolutely uproariously funny.”—Bookreporter.com
“Who among us hasn’t nurtured a desire to leap into our favorite books? …a delightful comic romp.”—The Times-Picayune(review of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict)
“The humor, the compelling ridiculousness of modern life and the absolutely charming characters keep the reader intrigued and delighted.”– Romantic Times(review of Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict)
“Rigler adds her fun-filled share to Austen’s ‘bit of ivory’, showing her legacy to be alive and kicking in contemporary writing.”—The Independent (Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict review)
About the novels
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
After nursing a broken engagement with Jane Austen novels and Absolut, Courtney Stone wakes up and finds herself not in her Los Angeles bedroom or even in her own body, but inside the bedchamber of a woman in Regency England. Who but an Austen addict like herself could concoct such a fantasy?
Not only is Courtney stuck in another woman’s life, she is forced to pretend she actually is that woman; and despite knowing nothing about her, she manages to fool even the most astute observer. But not even Courtney’s level of Austenmania has prepared her for the chamber pots and filthy coaching inns of nineteenth-century England, let alone the realities of being a single woman who must fend off suffocating chaperones, condom-less seducers, and marriages of convenience.
This looking-glass Austen world is not without its charms, however. There are journeys to Bath and London, balls in the Assembly Rooms, and the enigmatic Mr. Edgeworth, who may not be a familiar species of philanderer after all. But when Courtney’s borrowed brain serves up memories that are not her own, the ultimate identity crisis ensues. Will she ever get her real life back, and does she even want to?
Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict
Meet Jane Mansfield, a gentleman’s daughter from Regency England who inexplicably awakens in the body and life of twenty-first-century Los Angeleno Courtney Stone. Jane had long wished to escape the confines of a life where her only career options were marriage or maiden aunt. But awakening in the high-tech, low-morality twenty-first century is not what she had in mind.
Nothing—not even her own face in the mirror—is the same. The only thing that is familiar, and the only thing she seems to have in common with the strange woman in whose life she has landed, is a love of Jane Austen.
Not everything about the twenty-first century is disagreeable, such as the delightful glass box in which tiny figures act out scenes from her favorite book, Pride and Prejudice. Or the machines that give light, play music, cool food, and even wash clothes. And though Jane has exchanged the rolling hills and hovering servants of her father’s estate for Courtney’s barred-window cell of an apartment, she has her first taste of privacy, independence, even the chance to earn her own money.
Granted, if she wants to take advantage of her freedom, she may have to learn to drive Courtney’s horseless metal carriage. But oh what places she goes! Public assemblies that pulsate with pounding music. Unbound hair and unrestricted clothing. The freedom to say what she wants when she wants—even to men without a proper introduction.
There is, however, the job she has no idea how to do, a dwindling bank account, and a growing pile of bills. Not to mention the confusing memories that are not her own, including her feelings for Courtney’s friend Wes and ex-fiancé Frank, both of whom, she is told, have betrayed her. Although she finds herself falling for Wes, what is she to make of a world in which flirting and kissing and even the sexual act itself raise no matrimonial expectations?
With only the words of Jane Austen and a mysterious lady to guide her, Jane cannot help but wonder if she would be better off in her own time, where at least the rules are clear—if returning is even an option.
