Ever since Emma Pierce read Pride and Prejudice, she’s been in love with Mr. Darcy and has regarded Jane Austen as the expert on all things romantic. So when it turns out that what her boyfriend Blake wants is more of a hook-up than a honeymoon, Emma is hurt, betrayed, and furious. She throws herself deeper into her work as CMO of Kinetics, only to find her job threatened when her boss brings in … boss brings in a consultant to help her expand the business to the East Coast. Her frustration turns to shock when that consultant turns out to be Blake’s younger brother, Lucas.
Emma is determined not to fall for Lucas, but as she gets to know him, she realizes that Lucas is nothing like his brother. He is kind and attentive and spends his time and money caring for the less fortunate. But as perfect as Lucas seems, he clearly has his secrets. After all, there’s an angry woman demanding money from him and a little girl who Lucas feels responsible for.
Realizing that her love life is as complicated as anything Jane Austen could have dreamed up, Emma must figure out the truth–and soon–if she wants any hope of writing her own “happily ever after” ending.
more
Cute story with fun Jane Austen references
Who doesn’t love Jane Austen? I am a huge fan of Austen and contemporary romance and this new book by Julie Wright manages to cover both of those points. Lies Jane Austen Told Me captured my attention and my heart. This sweet love story was so fun to read!
I love the voice that Wright infuses into her characters. Emma is witty, sometimes sarcastic, and has a love/hate relationship with Jane Austen. I like that she’s vulnerable and has a depth to her that is meaningful to the story. Blake Hampton seemed like the perfect boyfriend, but I’m so glad that Emma has a chance to get to know his brother Lucas before she makes her final decision.
If you’re looking for the perfect sweet contemporary romance–a clean read–then you’ll want to pick up Lies Jane Austen Told Me by Julie Wright.
I did not realize this book came before Lies, Love and Breakfast at Tiffany’s until I started listening to this book. Oh well, it was still a fun book to listen too. It makes some of the moments in the next book make a whole lot more sense now. I’d definitely read this book before Lies, Love and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I love everything about this book. The Jane Austen comments, the growth of Emma, relationships with the Hampton family, and of course the chemistry of Emma and Lucas. Julie Wright has managed to get me emotionally involved with the characters. If you can feel what the characters are feeling, then you know it’s an excellent book.
I highly recommend this book to all romance and Jane Austen lovers.
A fun take on the typical Darcy/Elizabeth story. Emma expects her boyfriend Blake to propose when he invites her to his family home, but everything goes wrong, and she decides that reality is the best place to be. But then she meets Lucas, who really is her perfect hero, except that he is Blake’s brother, and has some strange issues that she can’t figure out. Emma has to find the balance between her romantic expectations and reality, and have the courage to fight for the love she deserves.
This was such a fun, cute, easy read. The story line was engaging and I didn’t feel like anything needed to be added or taken away. It was just perfect. I read it in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The characters were classy, there wasn’t unnecessary drama, and I really found myself rooting for everyone in the story. I’d read more by this author and definitely recommend this book!
Fun, light romance. I liked Emma well enough, even if she seems a little naive sometimes and a little too suspicious of machoism and sexism in her boss. Maybe she is justified but it kind of seems to be her driving motivation a lot of time and she talks about it a lot. However, I was happy when she finally figured what she needed and wanted and that it was always right in front of her. Lucas is such a great character—a real, modern-day Mr. Darcy—and I was rooting for him from the very beginning. His connection with April, his understanding of Emma even when she shows she doesn’t trust him, and his love for his family and dedication to helping homeless kids, all make him a character one can’t help but love! Blake is a jerk and I don’t know why Emma ever liked him in the first place. Emma’s friend is super fun and I loved her from the very beginning.
AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Read by Justine Eyre—Justine isn’t my favorite reader. She is energetic and uses good inflection and is interesting to listen to. However, all of her male voices sound exactly the same, and something in the way she deepens her voice makes them always sound as if they are choked up and on their way to crying. It really took me aback when I first heard it and just felt it was weird by the end of the book. So she does pretty well as a reader but I’d like to hear a male voice that doesn’t sound about ready to cry.
Emma Pierce is the CMO of Kinetics. She’s smart, funny, and she’s a HUGE fan of Jane Austen, but renounces Jane when she has a big misunderstanding with the guy she’s been dating–Blake Hampton. He’s invited her to his parents house for the weekend, and Emma originally told him she had a work meeting, but when a co-worker puts it into her head that Blake is going to propose, she changes her mind and suddenly shows up at their estate. He’s surprised all right because he’s already invited another girl for dinner. The weekend-that-wasn’t gets better when she runs into Blake’s brother as she storms off. He ends up taking her to her place instead of letting her get back home on her own. This leads to Emma deciding that maybe a spinster isn’t the best person to give advice on love and romance and she wants nothing to do with Jane Austen.
Monday morning Emma gets another unexpected surprise when she arrives at work to find they’ve hired a consultant. It’s none other than Blake’s brother Lucas (who gave her a ride home) and he comes in just as Emma’s announcing to her team that she’s not engaged!! Could the floor just open up and swallow this poor woman?!
Except for the fact that Lucas keeps talking up Blake to try and get Emma to make up with him, Lucas is dream–he’s smart, handsome, extremely polite and good to his parents and others. I couldn’t picture Emma with Blake at all, now on the other hand she and Lucas were perfect for each other. They both were abandoned by their mothers, but more importantly they cared about the same things. I’m glad Blake didn’t turn out to be a complete jerk by the end of the book, and I was happy he and Emma remained friends.
Emma assumes something about Lucas and instead of asking him about it as soon as she thinks it, she remains quiet. I kept telling her she needed to ask him about it, but she didn’t listen to me. When she finally talks to him about it, he feels hurt and insulted that she would think he could do such a thing. This leads to Emma tossing her beloved copy of Pride and Prejudice into the wastebasket!! (she takes it out and apologizes to it afterward) It wasn’t Jane’s fault Emma assumed something that wasn’t true.
I enjoyed the Jane Austen quotes at the beginning of each chapter, and I loved the descriptions of what she and Lucas did while they were on locations for work. I liked how their strengths complemented each other.
I loved Blake and Lucas’ mom, and thought she was great! She totally knew Lucas had fallen for Emma before Emma came for her birthday weekend, and Emma knew that the mom knew which made for a little awkwardness. Emma has a great friend in Silvia who gives her the kick in the pants she needed to tell Lucas how she felt about him. Isn’t that was best friends are for?
Although I own a Kindle copy, I listened to the audiobook of this through the Hoopla app from my library. I thought the narrator did a great job especially with Emma.
This book was Ok. It wasn’t my favorite for sure. The characters didn’t have many redeeming qualities and the story wasn’t great. I just found myself not loving it. I wish I liked it more.
Emma Pierce, hopeless romantic and Jane Austen lover, and all things regency, wants her own happily ever after. After years of heartbreak and realizing her old boyfriend is only in it for a hook-up she realizes, Jane Austen lies. In fact-
“Jane Austen is a horrific liar.
I used to believe that Jane, my Jane, could never be wrong about anything. She was the quintessential authority on all things to do with love, romance, and matrimony… But as I moved into my midtwenties and no men ever acted as gallantly as Mr. Knightley or Mr. Darcy… I came to a startling and wretched revelation.
Jane never found love.”
Julie Wright has created a modern book worth of Austen dramatics. With Emma in a love triangle with two brothers who are very different at a time when she decides to focus on her career, Emma is put into quite the conundrum. This conundrum creates humorous situations and witty banter as the romantic feelings grow. Emma’s conflict of finding love vs. awkward family situations has the reader cheering her on, hoping she finds her happily ever after. When I am drawn into the story and excited to keeping turning the pages, I know I have found a good book.
I LOVE this book. I bought it on my ereader a few years ago and then loved it so much I recently got it on audible as well just so I could listen to it again. Such a great story with engrossing, catchy prose and lovely characters.
First of all: what a title! I’m so impressed, from a marketing standpoint. Automatically I know that I can expect a clean romance set in modern times, and the cover reinforces that nicely. Bravo, Julie Wright (or whoever was responsible for title and cover!)
The story itself reads like the screenplay of a chick flick, which has plusses and minuses. It’s predictable yet sweet, heartwarming but occasionally bordering on cheesy. True to the title, the main character (incidentally also named Emma, like one of Austen’s most famous heroines) is a Jane Austen fanatic, but she’s become disillusioned with the lack of happily-ever-afters in the real world. She’s trying to lower her expectations, yet finds herself comparing her life to any one of the Austen heroines throughout the book, despite herself. This did feel a bit like a gimmick after awhile, and I really didn’t need it to make the title feel relevant.
The basic plot: Emma is dating a Darcy-esque (or so we think) super rich guy named Blake, but surprises him at home and finds him with another woman. He swears there is nothing between them. Blake’s brother Lucas ends up chasing Emma down, and one thing leads to another such that Emma finds herself witnessing what she perceives to be a showdown between Lucas and his drug addicted ex, with his little girl April caught in the middle. But then Emma gets to work, and–surprise!–Lucas turns out to be the new consultant. Lucas spends much of their early interactions trying to get Emma to give his brother a second chance. Emma, while falling for Lucas, tries to tell herself this is mad because 1) he’s Blake’s brother, and 2) he apparently has a child whom he’s not caring for. (See her prejudice there? Hehe.) There are lots of little wink-winks throughout the book for Austen fans. And just as we Austen fans might hope, nobody jumps into bed with anybody else, and after some serious misunderstandings get resolved, they all live happily ever after.
My rating: *** 1/2
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Ever since Emma read Pride and Prejudice, she’s been in love with Mr. Darcy and has regarded Jane Austen as the expert on all things romantic. So naturally, when Emma falls for Blake Hampton and he invites her home to meet his parents, she is positive an engagement is in her future. But when it turns out that what Blake actually wants is more of a hook-up than a honeymoon, Emma is hurt, betrayed, and furious.
She’s further shocked when the new consultant at work turns out to be Blake’s younger (adopted) brother, Lucas, who continues to try to push her back into Blake’s arms. Over the weeks that they work together, Emma connects with Lucas like she never did to his brother, sharing her feelings of abandonment from when her mother left the family. As she helps Lucas deal with his past demons, she is able to exorcise some of her own.
Realizing that her love life is as complicated as anything Jane Austen could have dreamed up, Emma must find a way to let Blake know that it’s time for him to let her go and to let Lucas know it’s time for him to love her back.
MY TAKE
This story is a hot mess of the feels. Wright did a fabulous job of making me care about the characters. I’m never a fan of love triangles and this story appeared to be leading to one of the worst kinds, where two brothers are in love with the same girl, a situation that could drive a terrible rift into a loving family. I didn’t like Blake the ex- at all, but over time through Lucas’s loving eyes, I could see a spark of hope. I couldn’t believe Wright would rip this family apart. She didn’t and the resolution was satisfying.
I loved Lucas right away. Emma about drove me crazy with all her angst. She was so capable and professional at work, but when it came to her love life, she was messed up. A lot of that came from her background and the feelings she had about the mother who abandoned her. We all carry scars (some even justified) from growing up, but it’s a huge thing when we can make peace with some of them and begin to move on. That’s really what Emma’s story is all about and how Lucas helps her to do that.
4 1/2 stars
I had never heard of this author before but found the book at the library on the ‘Recommended’ shelf. It is listed as a Proper Romance Series. I don’t know what that is but I will be checking it our as well as other books by her. It was great.