I love it! Midnight in Austenland is so much fun! Although we are in the same setting as Austenland- the beautiful Pembrook Park- this is a totally different plot! I was curious to see what Hale would do with the pretentious housekeeper, our favorite Southern “English” buxom Miss Charming and the delicious (and possibly gay) Colonel Andrews. This was a total surprise- and delightfully so!! I have to say that I connect more with our new heroine Charlotte. She is wounded, lost and without confidence, but so lovable! I am more like her in the way that I stutter or ramble when I’m nervous and I can never think of witty things to say when I need my brain to cooperate. “Naughty brain.”

Spoiler Alert!! If you plan on reading it and don’t want it spoiled, don’t read any further! I think this book resonates more with me because of her failed marriage, and her feelings of not knowing how to move forward and live like a single woman with children; her thoughts about being on a date and feeling like she shouldn’t be there because she still feels like a married woman.  My only negative criticism is that I would have liked to see our heroine walk away WITHOUT an actor on her arm this time! I think, for me at least, it would have been more fulfilling had she left with her newly-found confidence and the knowledge that good men really do exist. But, the only reason I could stomach that she left with the actor was that she had been on so many dates since her divorce. At least he wasn’t the first nice she met!

Hale has such an awesome sense of humor and her characters are just so lovable, you can’t help but laugh with them and root for them! This mystery will keep you giggling and guessing! So, for those who for some strange and unknown reason (Stefanie) didn’t like the first one, I hope you will be pleasantly surprised by the sequel! (Stefanie didn’t love the first one, but she couldn’t get enough of this one! Too bad for the ladies behind her on the list from her local library, she’s keeping this book the full 3 weeks so she can read it again!) Read it today! So much fun! And as a token to Miss Austen, the good characters have a good ending and the naughty ones get what’s coming to them.  You gotta love it!

Don’t forget to visit Shannon Hale’s blog- squeetus.com