Cassandra’s Sister

“Blends romance and tart courtship commentary successfully enough to create new Austen fans, gratify existing ones, and send both back to the stacks for more.” — Booklist (starred review)

Young Jane — or Jenny, as she is called — is a girl with a head full of questions. Surrounded by her busy parents and brothers, Jenny finds a place for her thoughts in the companionship of her older sister, Cassandra. Theirs is a country life full of balls and visits, at which conversation inevitably centers on one topic: marriage. But the arrival of their worldly-wise cousin disrupts Jenny’s world, bringing answers to some of her questions and providing a gem of an idea. Veronica Bennett invites us into a society where propriety and marriage rule hand in hand, a milieu in which Jenny finds inspiration to write the masterpieces Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility — a world where a clever young girl will one day become the beloved Jane Austen.