First Impressions by Charlie Lovett

The subtitle is A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love and Jane Austen.  I'm not a Jane Austen fan so it was a bit of a slow start but once the mystery, revealed in parallel and alternating chapters, kicked in, I was hooked.  One story begins in 1796 with a young Jane Austen as the central character.  The other is a contemporary story in the English countryside where the young book lover, Sophie Collingwood, is grieving the loss of her favorite uncle and the further loss of the family's extensive library. The object at the center of attention in both is the one and only copy of a little book written by the Rev. Mansfield, close friend of Jane.  The book was once in the Collingwood library.  In the book was  a story that would grow up to be Pride and Prejudice.  Did Jane Austen steal her most famous novel from her elderly friend and is this mystery somehow connected to her uncle's mysterious death? The fact that Lovett moves so easily between the style of the Victorian novel and contemporary writing was one of my favorite parts of this book - one every bibliophile would enjoy.