The Elopement

Three women, two families, one forbidden marriage. Get ready to fall in love with the brand-new regency romance from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Godmersham Park and Miss Austen. `A richly imagined family saga, love story and social comedy' Times'Gripping and moving and also so sharp and funny. I loved it!' Sabine Durrant, bestselling author of Lie with Me`Has all the wit and wisdom of a Jane Austen novel' Red -----------------1820. Mary Dorothea is living under the sole charge of her widowed father, Sir Edward, a man of strict principles and high moral values. But when Sir Edward marries Miss Fanny Knight of Godmersham Park, Mary's life is suddenly changed. Mary's new stepmother, Fanny, comes from a large, happy and sociable family, and Fanny's brothers are amusing, handsome and completely charming. One brother is particularly attentive and, as Mary approaches her seventeenth birthday, a bond forms between them that leads, on the last day of the year 1825, to a proposal of marriage. Sir Edward's outrage is immediate, his refusal isabsolute. The union will never take place. There appears to be only one solution . . . -----------------Praise for The Elopement:`Hornby's Austen books are funny, bittersweet family sagas, impeccably researched and lavishly imagined' The Times 'Tremendous' Nigella Lawson'Has all Austen's wit and unnerving powers of observation with an extra twenty-first century zap' Ferdinand Mount, prize-winning author of Big Ceasars and Little Caesars`Few writers are as perspicacious or half as delightful as Hornby' Karen Joy Fowler, international bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club`A captivating return to the world of the Austens' Woman & Home`Combines meticulous period research with a fine feeling for the characters' inner lives, hopes and fears' Daily MailReaders are loving The Elopement:'I was hooked from the first page' 5-star reader review'I loved every minute of this novel' 5-star reader review`One of the best books I've read this year. It's a delight - by turns refreshing, funny, romantic, poignant and touching' 5-star reader review`Full of warmth, wit and suspense' 5-star reader review'It is so well-written with vivid period detail that I felt immersed in the Austen world and did not want it to end' 5-star reader review