Searching for Mr. Tilney
Searching for Mr. Tilney is a compelling combination of a retelling of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and a time travel novel. In 1975, fashion design student Caroline Heath goes to Bath to recover from an illness. She stays in a Georgian house that had once belonged to relatives of Jane Austen. Soon she meets Harry Tate, a young man who bears a close resemblance to Henry Tilney, hero of Northanger Abbey, Caroline’s favorite novel. She believes she might have found the man of her dreams, but complications ensue. Caroline discovers the teenage diary of Jane Austen and is increasingly drawn to it. Eventually she finds herself inhabiting the body of Jane’s sister, Cassandra. Caroline, both in her experiences as Cassandra Austen and back in her own time, reading Jane’s diary, learns of the Austen sisters’ lives in 1788-89, while they stay with their relatives in Kent and, later, in Bath. Cassandra falls in love with Tom Fowle, a penniless clergyman, but her mother wishes her to marry her wealthy cousin Lucius. Meanwhile, Jane feels the first stirrings of love for Lucius’s younger brother Thomas.
Jane Odiwe’s love for Austen shines through on every page. The novel is a treat for Austen fans, especially lovers of Northanger Abbey, as Caroline’s romance with Harry parallels that of Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney, complete with a spooky old castle. The reader learns details about Jane Austen’s early life that are not widely known, and Odiwe makes a strong argument that the so-called Rice Portrait of Jane Austen actually does represent the teenage Austen. In the diary, we learn how the portrait came to be painted, and Odiwe speculates on what happened to it later on. Odiwe keeps you turning the pages, both in Caroline’s story and in that of the Austen sisters.
