As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’m thrilled to be part of The Austen Connection’s The Great Jane Austen Read Along as the Read-Along librarian, giving you great book recommendations and readalikes that perfectly match with the Austen novels you will read (or reread) during this read-along! I have a lot of great books to talk about, so let’s get started!
After reading Northanger Abbey, you are probably looking for something about the themes and ambience based on this underrated novel. Here are some readalikes that will hopefully mix into your reading year:
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are ‘affiliate links’. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission.
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
The classic that is mentioned in Northanger Abbey and a personal favorite of Austen’s, this gothic classic defined the gothic genre, and although it might be a challenge for modern readers, it is a must-read for Austen readers to encounter Radcliffe’s eloquent writing and detailed descriptions. No wonder her work inspired Austen.
A best-seller in its day and a potent influence on Sade, Poe, and other purveyors of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic horror, The Mysteries of Udolpho remains one of the most important works in the history of European fiction. After Emily St. Aubuert is imprisoned by her evil guardian, Count Montoni, in his gloomy medieval fortress in the Appenines, terror becomes the order of the day. With its dream-like plot and hallucinatory rendering of its characters’ psychological states, The Mysteries of Udolpho is a fascinating challenge to contemporary readers. (Credit: Oxford University Press)
Get It At: Your local library | Project Gutenberg |LibriVox |Bookshop.org
Evelina by Frances Burney
Enjoyed reading about Catherine, a young, naïve girl entering Bath society. How about a story about a young and naïve girl entering London high society named Evelina? In a similar witty and satirical writing style, you will enjoy reading the pleasures and dangers of the fashionable lifestyle. Like Austen, Burney takes an insightful look into women’s position in the 18th century and tells a delightful love story along the way.
Get It At: Your local library | Project Gutenberg |LibriVox
Helen by Maria Edgeworth
Austen called her “The Great Maria”, so it’s fair to say that Austen was a big fan of Maria Edgeworth. So, it’s fitting to have Edgeworth’s novels as a recommendation. Although Belinda is mentioned in Northanger Abbey, Helen’s storyline is similar to Northanger Abbey. I feel that Helen will make a perfect conclusion for this month’s readalong pick. The newly orphaned Helen Stanley is advised to share the home of her childhood friend Lady Cecilia, a charming socialite. However, Lady Cecilia’s urge to withhold secrets causes turmoil in Helen’s life. She is drawn into the web of ‘white lies’, which threaten her hopes for a suitable marriage and a decent place in society.
Get It At: Your local library | Project Gutenberg
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The deliriously entertaining Cold Comfort Farm is “very probably the funniest book ever written” (The Sunday Times, London), a hilarious parody of D. H. Lawrence’s and Thomas Hardy’s earthy, melodramatic novels. When the recently orphaned socialite Flora Poste descends on her relatives at the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm in deepest Sussex, she finds a singularly miserable group in dire need of her particular talent: organization. (Credit: Penguin Classics)
Get It At: Your local library
And if you are looking for either retellings or contemporary titles, why not give these a try:
Ghosted: A Northanger Abbey Novel by Amanda Quain
Hattie Tilney isn’t a believer. Yes, she’s a senior at America’s most (allegedly) haunted high school, Northanger Abbey. But ever since her paranormal-loving dad passed away, she’s hung up her Ghostbusters suit, put away the EMF detectors, and moved on. She has enough to worry about in the land of the living—like taking care of her younger brother, Liam, while their older sister spirals out and their mother, Northanger’s formidable headmistress, buries herself in work. If Hattie just tries hard enough and keeps that overachiever mask on tight through graduation, maybe her mom will finally notice her.
But the mask starts slipping when Hattie’s assigned to be an ambassador to Kit Morland, who’s just transferred to Northanger on—what else—a ghost-hunting scholarship. The two are paired up for an investigative project on the school’s paranormal activity, and Hattie quickly strikes a deal: Kit will present whatever ghostly evidence he can find to prove that the campus is haunted, and Hattie will prove it’s not. But as they explore the abandoned tunnels and foggy graveyards of Northanger, Hattie starts to realize that Kit might be the kind of person who makes her want to believe in something—and someone—for the first time. (Credit: Wednesday Books)
Get it At: Your local library
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.
But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. (Credit: Penguin Books)
Get it At: Your local library | Bookshop.org
The All-American by Joe Milan, Jr.
Seventeen-year-old Bucky Yi knows nothing about his birth country of South Korea or his bio-dad’s disappearance; he can’t even pronounce his Korean name correctly. Running through the woods of rural Washington State with a tire tied to his waist, his sights are set on one all-American goal: to become a college football player.
So when a misadventure with his adoptive family leads the U.S. government to deport him to South Korea, he’s forced to navigate an entirely foreign version of his life. One mishap leads to another, and as an outsider, Bucky has to fall back on not just his raw physical strength, but resources of character and attitude he didn’t know he had. In an expat bar in Seoul, in the bleak barracks of his Korean military, on a remote island where an erratic sergeant fights a shadow-war with North Korean spies, and in the remote town where he seeks out his drunken, indebted biological father, Bucky has to assemble the building blocks of a new language and stubbornly rebuild himself from scratch. That means managing his ego, insecurities, sexual desires, family legacies, and allegiances in order to make it back home–wherever that might be–and determine who he is to himself, who he is to others, and what kind of man he wants to become. (Credit: W.W. Norton and Company)
Get it At: You local library
Mary B by Katherine J. Chen
What is to be done with Mary Bennet? She possesses neither the beauty of her eldest sister, Jane, nor the high-spirited wit of second-born Lizzy. Even compared to her frivolous younger siblings, Kitty and Lydia, Mary knows she is lacking in the ways that matter for single, not-so-well-to-do women in nineteenth-century England who must secure their futures through the finding of a husband. As her sisters wed, one by one, Mary pictures herself growing old, a spinster with no estate to run or children to mind, dependent on the charity of others. At least she has the silent rebellion and secret pleasures of reading and writing to keep her company.
But even her fictional creations are no match for the scandal, tragedy, and romance that eventually visit Mary’s own life. In Mary B, readers are transported beyond the center of the ballroom to discover that wallflowers are sometimes the most intriguing guests at the party. Beneath Mary’s plain appearance and bookish demeanor simmers an inner life brimming with passion, humor, and imagination—and a voice that demands to be heard. (Credit: Random House Trade Paperbacks)
Get it At: Your local library
That’s it for the Northanger Abbey readalikes! Make sure to continue with the read-along for more book recommendations.
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