This is a wild thing to say, but I’m saying it, so stay with me. This series is Dungeon Crawler Carl for the Jane Austenites. I’m not even finished with it yet and I already know that. It’s the kind of story you read once, probably in a very short time, then immediately go back in for a re-read or five. This story is—aside from having lovable characters and a certain anti-authoritarian bent—nothing like Dungeon Crawler Carl. And yet.
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion is a series of ongoing epistolary novellas/novels about Emma M. Lion. We are treated to her “unselected journals”, in that they are presented to us supposedly unedited, warts and all, to judge accordingly. But of course we do not judge, instead we become extremely attached to Emma, living in her EXTREMELY charming* made-up part of Victorian London with what is ever more becoming a very rag-tag set of friends and enemies (well, only one enemy, but he lives in her house, so).
*St. Crispians, a place where ghosts are real, your belongings may wander off (to be found and later collected in a tea shop lost and found), every year they have a scavenger hunt for tickets to a “secret” performance of Julius Caesar, the local pub is called Cleopatra, and church service is led by a young vicar with a bent towards poetry. It’s basically the Stars Hollow of England, is what I’m saying.
The first three books cover Emma’s life from March through August of 1883, when she is arriving back in London after three years of being a paid companion to her insufferable cousin Matilde (who isn’t even really her cousin, and who hasn’t even paid her yet), to take up residence in the house she is to inherit from her father, who himself inherited it from an aunt. It’s currently being managed by said previously mentioned enemy, Cousin Archibald, who puts Emma in quite a pickle by spending almost her entire living on waistcoats, expensive morning robes, and the racetrack (and he doesn’t even like horse racing). He does this out of spite, and in doing so, hurts himself in the process, because if the money runs out, he’s out of a home just as much as she is. Ugh, he’s such a toad.
So that’s where the story starts, with Emma trying her best to manage difficult circumstances, while finding her place in the world again. Shenanigans ensue.
Apparently there are going to be twenty-four of these books, but so far only eight have been published. Rumor has it Beth Brower is working simultaneously on books nine and ten, but I don’t want her to rush it in fear of losing the magic. These books are so cozy and wholesome and funny in a very strange way, and all that kookiness only makes the serious moments stand out all the more. I am emotionally compromised.
The audiobooks, by the way, are incredible.
If none of that convinced you and you trust me at all, please just give the first book a try anyway and maybe you’ll be surprised.
