Women 2020 Spotlight: Jane Austen

This year is the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote, and to celebrate, we will be featuring some of our favorite fiction and nonfiction females from upcoming and core backlist titles. And what better way to start than with a spotlight on one of literature’s most beloved women, Jane Austen!

MISS AUSTEN by Gill Hornby

The untold story of the most important person in Jane Austen’s life: her sister Cassandra, a woman as captivating as any Austen heroine. “The well-known friendship and bonds of loyalty between Jane Austen and her older sister Cassandra are celebrated and explored in this novel… For readers who enjoy Austen’s novels and wish to know more about her life and for those seeking excellent English historical fiction.”–Library Journal, starred review

THE OTHER BENNET SISTER by Janice Hadlow

Mary, the bookish ugly duckling of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE’s five Bennet sisters, emerges from the shadows and transforms into a desired woman with choices of her own. “Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished. Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.”–Kirkus Reviews, starred review

THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY by Natalie Jenner

In the small English village of Chawton, an unlikely group of people unite through their love of Jane Austen. “Readers who enjoy character-driven novels will want to read this book. Like Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows’s THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY Guernsey, it’s a must-purchase for libraries of all sizes.”–Library Journal, starred review

AUSTEN YEARS: A Memoir in Five Novels by Rachel Cohen

With unusual depth and fresh insight into Austen’s life and literature, Rachel Cohen’s AUSTEN YEARS is a memoir of grief and family, a love letter to a literary master, and a powerful consideration of the odd process that merges our interior experiences with the world at large.