I hope I can entice you to join me in July to read “Miss Austen,” by Gill Hornby. Christian Science Monitor sums this book up: “Jane Austen’s sister destroyed her letters. ‘Miss Austen’ imagines the reasons.”
England, 1840. Two decades after the death of her beloved sister, Jane, Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury and the home of her family friends, the Fowles. In a dusty corner of the vicarage, there is a cache of Jane’s letters that Cassandra is desperate to find. Dodging her hostess and a meddlesome housemaid, Cassandra eventually hunts down the letters and confronts the secrets they hold, secrets not only about Jane but about Cassandra herself. Will Cassandra bare the most private details of her life to the world, or commit her sister’s legacy to the flames?
Moving back and forth between the vicarage and Cassandra’s vibrant memories of her years with Jane, interwoven with Jane’s brilliantly reimagined lost letters, Miss Austen is the untold story of the most important person in Jane’s life. With extraordinary empathy, emotional complexity, and wit, Gill Hornby finally gives Cassandra her due, bringing to life a woman as captivating as any Austen heroine.
Buy Miss Austen on Amazon (affiliate link) or grab it from your local library.
We’ll discuss the book every week over at the Lovely Living University Book Club Group on Facebook.
Reading Schedule:
July 1 – 7: Chapters 1-6
July 8-15: Chapters 7-14
July 16-22: Chapters 15-22
July 23-31: Chapters 23-27
Reviews of Miss Austen:
Austenesque Reviews: Miss Austen
AustenProse.com: Miss Austen Review
Christian Science Monitor: Miss Austen Review
Girl With Her Head in a Book: Miss Austen
The Guardian: Miss Austen Review
New York Journal of Books: Miss Austen
Publishers Weekly: Miss Austen
Wall Street Journal: Miss Austen Review – Her Sister’s Keeper
