"The Jane Austen Society" by Natalie Jenner

I wouldn't call myself a Jane Austen expert, but I have read and enjoyed three of her novels (so far...!) -- "Emma" (for a class at university), "Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility" (on my own).  In the early days of ALI blogging, we read & discussed "The Jane Austen Book Club" by Karen Joy Fowler for our Barren B*tches book club. 

So I was predisposed to pick up "The Jane Austen Society" by Natalie Jenner (who, I discovered from the jacket copy, is a British-born Canadian, who owns an independent bookstore in Oakville, west of Toronto). (It didn't hurt that it was on sale for 40% off -- or that Anne Bogel/Modern Mrs. Darcy recommended it either, lol.)  

The story is mostly set in the English village of Chawton just after the Second World War. Chawton is a real-life place, where Jane Austen spent the last several years of her life and wrote her three final novels. More than 100 years after her death, she continues to attract visitors to the village. Loosely based on the story behind the real-life Jane Austen Society, the book follows a number of different (fictional) characters -- locals and others -- and how they come together to form the society to help preserve Austen's legacy. I'll admit I had trouble keeping all of them and their storylines straight, at least at first. By the end of the book, however, they had all become very dear to me, and I was cheering for them all (even as some of their storylines wrapped up in rather predictable ways...!).   

The book makes liberal references & allusions to Austen's novels, and it would probably help if you have at least some familiarity with her work.  If you haven't read any Austen previously, I'm betting you will probably want to pick one of her books up after you finish this one!  There are echoes here of "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" (which I've read a couple of times, and reviewed here) -- the similar post-war time frame, English village setting and the love of literature. 

**SPOILER/TRIGGER/ALI ALERT BELOW**:   

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There is a pregnancy loss in this book, and themes of grief & loss are prominent throughout.  

Four stars on Goodreads 

This was Book #3 read to date in 2021 (and Book #3 finished in January), bringing me to 8% of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 2 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books."