APRIL 2020 - AudioFile
In a cultured, melodious voice, narrator Juliet Stevenson becomes Miss Cassandra Austen, older sister to Jane and keeper of her memory. In the course of this fictional biography, Cassandra, at the end of her life, tells the story of her relationship with Jane through letters and reminiscences. The story shifts between the late 1790s and early 1800s and the present of 1840, when Cassandra arrives to help clean out the family parsonage and rescue Jane’s letters for posterity. Stevenson portrays the Austen sisters, nieces, and sister-in-law with different tones ranging from soft to stiff, from cultured to bombastic. Fans of Austen will discover echoes of the plots of her famous books, including the heartrending lost chances for love suffered by both Jane and Cassandra. M.B.K. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
Praise for Miss Austen
“Hornby’s gift to the world of Austen lovers is to return to Cassandra her rightful recognition as Jane’s most intimate and sustaining relationship, her greatest love. This is a deeply imagined and deeply moving novel. Reading it made me happy and weepy in equally copious amounts.”
—Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“Unputdownable. So good, so intelligent, so clever, so entertaining—I adored it.”
—Claire Tomalin, author of Jane Austen: A Life
“Extraordinary and heart-wrenching, Miss Austen transported me from page one. A remarkable novel that is wholly original, deeply moving, and emotionally complex. A gift to all Austen lovers.”
—Lara Prescott, author of The Secrets We Kept
“Gill Hornby places Cassandra center stage and ingeniously imagines what her own life might have been like—an approach which casts a different light on the familiar biographical picture without in any way distorting it.”
—Deirdre Le Faye, editor of Jane Austen’s Letters
“I’ve seldom enjoyed any Austen-centered book so much as this. Affecting and thought-provoking, it makes you think about both the Miss Austens in a new light.”
—Helena Kelly, author of Jane Austen, the Secret Radical
“A joy from the prologue to the author’s note. Rich in historical detail, family lore, and heart, Miss Austen will wow Janeites and enchant the uninitiated. Upon her sister’s death, Cassandra claimed that she was ‘the sun of my life.’ Now we know why.”
—Laurel Ann Nattress, editor of Jane Austen Made Me Do It
“Fans of Austen will rejoice in the chance to enter this fictional world and spend time with the extended Austen family as Cassandra and Jane navigate the demands of her genius and temperament in the face of the many pressures single women have endured throughout history.”
—Natalie Jenner, author of The Jane Austen Society
