We are remiss in updating our list of the latest publications of interest to Janeites. Lady Russell, we assume, has already received her shipment at her lodgings in Bath.

Jane Austen in Scarsdale; or, Love, Death, and the SATs by Paula Marantz Cohen, the author of Jane Austen in Boca, has been released. The online magazine Per Contra has posted a review.

As in her first novel (a Book of the Month Club selection), Jane Austen in Boca, a number of characters and plot elements are drawn from an Austen novel; nonetheless, the reader can enjoy Cohen’s book with or without knowledge of the relevant Austen novel. However, those who are familiar with Persuasion will, perhaps, take extra pleasure in some of the details of this novel, both in its similarities and deviations from the original. Some of the characters, of course, are drawn on Austen’s–and, in Anne’s case, carry the same name. Like Anne Elliott, Anne Ehrlich’s been persuaded to give up her first love because he did not meet the social standards of the family. With a nod to 2006, she is thirty-four rather than late twenties–a more spinster-like age in the 21st century. Other Persuasion characters are the spendthrift widower father and the elder sister who both treat Anne with casual disdain. And, as in the earlier novel, the financial situations of Ann and her suitor are reversed. When Anne’s cousin Rachel falls ill, and it turns out to be Lyme disease, the reader of Austen’s novel will recognize the sly allusion to the visit to the seaside resort of Lyme Regis in Persuasion.

North by Northanger, the latest book in the Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mysteries series by Carrie Bebris, has been released, and it has been whispered in our shell-pink ear that Da Man himself makes an appearance.

Cristina of BrontëBlog sent us an article about a book called Dear Jane Austen: A Heroine’s Guide to Life and Love, which seems kind of similar to Jane Austen’s Guide to Dating (which we rather enjoyed). An excerpt:

“When I was merely twenty, I fell in love with a young Irishman. We knew very little of one another — far too little, indeed, to have fallen so deeply in love,” Hannon writes in Austen’s voice. Convinced that Austen’s life was not as plain as legend might have it, Hannon hopes readers will pick up on the subtle drama that unfolds behind the love advice.

Paging Anne Hathaway, Miss Hathaway, please pick up the white courtesy phone…

Searching for Jane Austen by Emily Auerbach is now out in an affordable paperback edition. We haven’t read it ourselves but have heard very good things about it.

Darcy & Elizabeth: Nights and Days at Pemberley by Linda Berdoll, the sequel to Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife (formerly published as The Bar Sinister), has been released. We hope to post a review on the blog within a few weeks. From Amazon:

Things start off sweetly as the terminally dignified Darcy returns from the continent to greet wife Elizabeth and the twins she has borne in his absence. Despite initial annoyance engendered by Elizabeth’s recuperation, during which sex is rather out of the question

We cannot begin to say how thoroughly annoyed we are by the notion of such a sexually incontinent Fitzwilliam Darcy, a man who would be all consideration for his beloved wife and the mother of his children, not a slave to his hormones.

By a Lady : Being the Adventures of an Enlightened American in Jane Austen’s England by Amanda Elyot will be out tomorrow, according to Amazon. The AustenBlog review will be posted soon.

Coming in the next few months, along with the previously-blogged Jane Austen for Dummies by Joan Klingel Ray, are The Jane Austen Miscellany by Lesley Bolton; The Man Who Loved Jane Austen by Sally Smith O’Rourke; and, in November 2006 *drumroll* Jane and the Barque of Frailty, the next in the Jane Austen Mysteries series (can we get a w00t? :D)

We are rather desperately behind at updating the links list, but hope to get to it this week–right now Dorothy is waiting with our bedtime cup of vanilla rooibos and the warming-pan, so we must seek our couch. Good night, gentle readers.