Paula Byrne

Summer 1801. Sidmouth, England. The Austen Family descends upon a fashionable Georgian seaside resort in Devonshire for a six-week holiday. Jane's brother, Frank, is on leave from the Royal Navy, and dearly wishes to unite his sister with his friend Captain Peter Parker. But another holidaymaker, a handsome stranger, catches sight of Jane and is determined to make her acquaintance....

‘Captures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously’ JILLY COOPER Picked as a Book to Look Forward to in 2021 by the Guardian, The Times and the Observer A Radio 4 Book of the Week, April 2021 Barbara Pym became beloved as one of the wittiest novelists of the late twentieth century, revealing the inner workings of domestic life so...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘It is good to meet the real Jane Austen at last’ Independent on Sunday 'Brilliantly illuminating … by focusing, chapter by chapter, on one thread or another of Austen’s experience, Byrne allows us to grasp the richness of her inner life’ Guardian Who was the real Jane Austen? A retiring spinster content with quiet village life?...

A Book of the Year in The Times, Guardian, Independent, New Statesman, Bookseller and at Waterstones 'He understands only the women he invents – the others not at all' Thomas Hardy is one of the most beloved and most-read British authors. His influence on literature and the minds of his readers is singular. But how is it that the novelist...