Audrey is in a depressed holding pattern--dumped by her boyfriend and waitlisted by her dream school, the RI School of Design, she puts in the motions of working at the family corner store in Pittsburgh. If she can send RISD the additional art they asked of her, maybe she'll get in, but she's not feeling any creative spark at all. But then a regular customer, a curmudgeonly old man, sends her back to England in 1812. Which turns out to be just the unsticking adventure she needs!
Back in 1812, wealthy and lovely Lucy is also stuck--her father is planning to marry her off to a much older man who is an awful piece of work. Then Audrey pops into her life. Lucy takes Audrey in hand, molding her as much as possible into a proper regency young lady, albeit one who's American upbringing can be used to try to explain all the bits of Audrey that refuse to be molded, and there are lots of these.
Audrey figures out that she has 24 days in the past, and figures that she needs to find her spark again to get home. So she casts around at the local eligible young men for love.... And Lucy, talking all this over with her new friend, yearns for a spark of her own.
And then they realize it is each other that is making sparks fly....
It's a charming enough romance, and there's considerable humor in fish out of water Audrey back in 1812, and considerable sympathy evoked for poor trapped Lucy. But the story didn't go beyond "charming enough" for me into any sort of moving, gripping reading experience. It's pretty clear what's going to happen romance-wise, so it was more a waiting for the inevitable to happen than a what will happen next story. Also the only Pride and Prejudice tie in was the time period, which disappointed me. If you want a bit of escapism with two girls falling sweetly in love, and if you like your Time Travel to be a diverting bit of plot device, it will do nicely, but if you want more, not so much.
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