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In the small village of Chawton, England, shortly after the end of World War 2, a number of inhabitants find themselves coming together over the shared love of Jane Austen’s writing. And it just so happens that Chawton was the last place Jane Austen lived.
A middle-aged doctor has been widowed for some time and finds himself lonely and staring down some demons. He has a fine friendship with a young woman who grew up in town and taught at the school briefly before getting married, then being widowed herself soon after, thanks to the war. An American actress visits a decade before, just to see the little place Austen called home, and ends up going back to Chawton later on with her fiancé. A man whose father and brothers died years earlier has been quietly doing work around the village but also quietly savoring Austen’s works. The middle-aged and single only child of the man who owns the Great House is a fan as well, and she even has the blood of Jane’s oldest brother in her veins, and the cottage Jane lived in at the end of her life is part of the estate.
As each deals with heartache or losses of some kind, they are buoyed by their many hours spent immersed in the words of the talented writer. And one comes up with an idea: to create a place, a museum of sorts, a destination for pilgrimages, for others who love those words just as much. There are definitely obstacles, but as they work through those toward their shared goal, many pieces will fall into place, even more than they might have planned.
The Jane Austen Society is a pleasant visit to postwar England, to a small village where people all know each other and look out for each other. It is certainly a love letter to Jane Austen, among many other books that seek to do honor to that writer who has made many laugh, weep, and fall in love with her wonderful characters. This novel itself, of course, though it walks in those exalted shoes, doesn’t have the graceful and confident gait of the one it pays homage to: indeed, it is tolerable, but not captivating enough to tempt me to reread it. A light and enjoyable read, though I’ll forget about it soon enough.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity is minimal, though there are two uses of strong profanity in addition to a few instances of mild language. Sexual/violent content includes one scene where one character faces an attempted rape by a supervisor.
*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
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