With all these plotlines running, the through-theme is a love of Jane Austen, and turning to her works in a time of need throughout our lives. There are many other characters, but these are the ones that really stuck out to me. Yardley Sinclair is an Austen fan working at Sotheby’s, so he has an eye for special items and preserving the author’s legacy through the objects associated with her. Evie Stone is a brilliant young woman who works at the house and slowly documents the whole library (she may be my favorite character here). Mimi Harrison is a movie star with a soft spot for Austen and a sleazy Hollywood producer fiancé.

Frances Knight is a hermit heir that finds community in her town, and rekindles an old love. The book has a little setup starting in 1932 and fast-forwarding a little over a few chapters until we get to 1945, where the events of the story really start.Īdeline and Dr. So once you get over the fact that this is fanfiction of real things, the book itself is a standard small-town charmer (mostly taking place in Chawton) with a Jane Austen twist.Īdam Berwick, who is the character we meet first, develops a really sweet affection of Austen’s works after running into an avid fan (who turns out to be Mimi). (Though there are nods to real history there, the golf course buyer, for example.) I wanted to set that up now so you’re aware that some of the major plot points that involve real places, societies and families are fiction. Was there a Knight family still living at Chawton? Yes, and you can find out about the real history of that family (again, this book takes lots of liberties there) and the preservation of Chawton House here.

This is basically fanfiction of the creation of that group, complete with an AGM at the end. Now before I go on, yes, there is a REAL Jane Austen Society in the UK. The post WWII community in Chawton comes together because of a shared love of Jane Austen and forms a society to help preserve her legacy, all while slowly coming to terms with their pasts and maybe finding love along the way. The book is a combination of Jane Austen Book Club and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. That feeling is really what Natalie Jenner’s The Jane Austen Society is trying to capture. We know that in times trouble, when we’re down, when we just need a friend, we turn to Jane Austen.

The jane austen society novel