Miss Austen

<p><b>NOW A MAJOR SERIES ON<i> BBC ONE</i> AND <i>BBC iPLAYER</i> STARRING KEELEY HAWES </b><br><br>'You can't help feeling that <b>Jane would have approved' </b><i>Observer</i><br>'So good, <b>so intelligent, so clever, so entertaining </b>- I adored it' Claire Tomalin<br>'Celebrates <b>unexamined lives</b>, <b>sisterhood </b>and <b>virtues </b>such as <b>kindness and loyalty</b>' <i>Sunday Times</i><br>'<b>Sparkling</b> novel' <i>Daily Mail</i><br>'I read the book and <b>laughed</b> and <b>sobbed</b>' Keeley Hawes<br><b>___________</b><br><br><b>Throughout her lifetime, Jane Austen wrote countless letters to her sister. But why did Cassandra burn them all?</b><br><br><b>1840</b>: 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.<br><br>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.<br><br>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?<br><br><b>Based on a literary mystery that has long puzzled biographers and academics, <i>Miss Austen</i> is a wonderfully original and emotionally complex novel about the loves and lives of Cassandra and Jane Austen.</b><br><b>___________</b><br><br>'The perfect book to wrap yourself around on a dark night' <b><i>STYLIST</i></b><br><br>'This is a deeply imagined and deeply moving novel' <b>KAREN JOY FOWLER, author of <i>The Jane Austen Bookclub</i></b><br><br>'It's a delight, one of those that you don't want to end.' <b><i>RTE</i></b><br><br>'A charming novel' <b><i>SUNDAY MIRROR</i></b><br><br><b><i>'</i></b>Hornby brings to life the Austen family, using the known to speculate on what might have been' <b><i>THE TIMES</i> Audio Book of the Week</b><br><br>'Extraordinary and heart-wrenching' <b>LARA PRESCOTT, author of <i>The Secrets We Kept</i></b><br><br>'Gill Hornby ingeniously imagines what Cassandra Austen's own life might have been like.' <b>DEIRDRE LE FAYE, editor of <i>Jane Austen's Letters</i></b><br><br>'Tender and touching' <b><i>DAILY MAIL</i></b><br><br>'Utterly absorbing' <b>ARTEMIS COOPER</b><br><br>'Delightful'<b> SUE RYAN, founder of Henley Lit Fest<br><br>___________</b><br><br><b>Loved <i>Miss Austen</i>? Check out Gill Hornby's wonderful new novel, <i>The Elopement</i>!</b></p>