There were times in my journey when I felt as if that penny and the hope it represented were the only things that kept me going.” We meet Elsa Wolcott in Dalhart, Texas, in 1921, on the eve of her 25th birthday, and wind up with her in California in 1936 in a saga of almost unrelieved woe. “Hope is a coin I carry: an American penny, given to me by a man I came to love. The miseries of the Depression and Dust Bowl years shape the destiny of a Texas family. Readers will root for these characters, wishing them Austen-worthy happy endings. Psychologically astute portrayals, the society founders themselves are very Than a passing familiarity with Austen’s work may be a prerequisite to fullyĪppreciating this book-Austen’s characters often seem more real to Jenner’sĬharacters than their own relatives and neighbors. Preserve the cottage as a museum-as its real-life counterpart is today.

These lost souls, who have been misjudged by societyĪnd/or misjudge themselves, find healing through forming the titular society to She’s been secretly cataloging everyīook in the manor’s vast library and has discovered some potentially priceless Evie, compelled by circumstance to forego scholarlyĪmbitions, is a housemaid for the Knights. Mimi, a Hollywood star, who, at 35, is about to be put out to pasture by a Who farms the estate, was introduced to Austen by a visiting American fan, Way to distrust, and each flirts with morphine addiction. Wife’s accidental death, is too guilt-ridden to act on his attraction to Adeline.Īfter she loses the baby, her Pride and Prejudice–style bantering with Dr. Gray, a widower who blames himself for his Schoolteacher, is pregnant and widowed-her husband died in combat in the war’sĬlosing days. Frances and her father’s lawyer,Īndrew, were once in love, but James forced them apart. The embittered James has altered his will: Upon his death, his only child andĬaregiver, Frances, a reclusive spinster of 47, will be dispossessed and theĮstate entailed to the closest male relative. Heir of the Knight estate, owns the cottage as well as a stately manor house.

Repressed longing and regret worthy of a Victorian novel. Small cottage Austen occupied before her death, and it's also a cauldron of In the insular post-World War Two gloom of an English village, seven damaged people soldier on, heartened only by their shared enthusiasm for Jane Austen.Ĭhawton, the village at the heart of this story, contains the

The jane austen society novel