Miss Austen by Gill Hornby
My review
4/5 stars
This novel follows Cassandra Austen in her later years, doing some family sleuthing to protect her late sister's legacy and reputation. It offers a possible explanation as to why Cassandra would choose to burn her sister's correspondence and also looks at how she survived the rest of the her life without her beloved sister and companion.
The slow pace of this book normally wouldn't be something that would work for me, but it actually really suited the nature of this story; it felt appropriate and well delivered. The pacing gave room for the characters to breathe and gave a real sense of being from a different time and place than our moden world.
Speaking of the characters, I think the author did a wonderful job in making the characters feel real. Their development and life stories felt entirely plausible for the real-life counterparts that we understand, at least partially, from studies of the past. It was respectful to a very real history, while also providing enough intrigue and dynamism to feel engaging and fresh.
I also particularly enjoyed the dual timeline. Given that Cassandra was re-reading old letters, the flashbacks to a timeline where Jane was still alive felt exactly right for the story. It kept me engaged and helped keep the slower pace from bringing down the book's general vibe.
All in all, this was a lovely, enjoyable read for any Austen fan and I'm looking forward to watching the recent BBC adaptation (which I didn't know was happening when I picked up the book).
Book blurb
Throughout her lifetime, Jane Austen wrote countless letters to her sister. But why did Cassandra burn them all?
1840: twenty three years after the death of her famous sister Jane, Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury, and the home of her family's friends, the Fowles.
She knows that, in some dusty corner of the sprawling vicarage, there is a cache of family letters which hold secrets she can never allow to be revealed.
As Cassandra recalls her youth and her relationship with her brilliant yet complex sister, she pieces together buried truths about Jane's history, and her own. And she faces a stark choice: should she act to protect Jane's reputation, or leave the contents of the letters to go unguarded into posterity?
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You can buy the book here now. It was published by Arrow.
For more on the author, you can follow her on Instagram, or check out her Goodreads page.
