REGINA'S CLOSET

By Diana M. Raab (Beaufort Books. 166 pages. $23.)

How many of us wish we had a journal of a beloved relative, long gone, to treasure and share -- and to perhaps help fill in the blanks of an extraordinarily difficult life? Diana Raab has such a gift. Her grandmother killed herself, but left behind pages and pages of single-spaced type, detailing a life of hardship, disease and war. Raab lets her grandmother's journal, letters and documents speak to us, and although the writing isn't special, the details are gripping. Regina is a child in Poland during World War I. She and her family flee, and the journal takes us to Vienna and Paris and eventually to Brooklyn. Orphaned, a desperate and starving Regina sees the ravages of cholera and deprivation -- and then a second world war. But the book isn't just history. We read of broken hearts, shattered dreams of medical school and the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters. The difficulty in the book is that Raab works hard to guide us through the journal, but occasionally intrudes. Her injections of her own stories sometimes seem forced. Through the book, we read of "my grandmother." Much later on, she is Regina, but only toward the end do we hear Raab's pet name for her: Dettner. I found myself wishing she had been so sweetly personal from the beginning. But again, the shared journal of such a life is a gift, and though the wrinkled wrapping paper might distract, it doesn't wreck it. Perhaps this book will inspire a generation to document their own stories.

HOLLY COLLIER, NEWS COPY EDITOR

JANE AUSTEN RUINED MY LIFE

By Beth Pattillo (Guideposts, 288 pages, $14.99 )

What Beth Pattillo got right was a snappy title for her breezy novel about a college professor named Emma, an expert on all things Jane Austen. What she got wrong was relying on too many coincidences and implausible situations in her story. Humiliated by her cheating husband and shamed by false charges of academic misconduct, our heroine flits off to London, where she conveniently has a cousin with whom she can stay. But the cousin isn't home -- and Emma's old boyfriend is there instead. Emma has been summoned to London by a mysterious group claiming possession of a cache of Austen's unpublished letters. To prove herself worthy of access to the letters, Emma must complete several Austen-related tasks. Her quest is interesting as she finds her way to Austen sites. But is it plausible that Emma, a well-known Austen scholar, has never been to these places? And for someone trying to reclaim her credibility, she suffers a lack of integrity. Emma contends that her chief problem in life is that she wants a happy ending, like an Austen novel. But little else of Austen seems to have rubbed off on her. Emma has neither the wit of Elizabeth Bennett nor the pluck of Austen's Emma. If you love Jane Austen, reread one of her novels, because this Emma neither charms nor surprises.

SHARON KESSLER, COPY EDITOR