Thank you to Gill Hornby, Random House UK, Cornerstone | Century, and NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

The Elopement is a reimagination of Jane Austen’s niece, Fanny Knight’s, life. The characterisation fell flat and the writing style failed to grip my attention. It was, unfortunately, quite boring. I’m sure it has it’s audience, but it was not for me. Unfortunately had to dnf.

I love the classics, especially those of Jane Austen, and Gill Hornby has really picked up the mantle and is writing brilliant classic style novels. Her first, Miss Austen was brilliant, and The Elopement I'm delighted to say is just as good.
It's full of warmth wit and suspense and I'd highly recommend.
Thanks to Gill Hornby, Century and NetGalley for the ARC.

It is 1820 and Sir Edward Knatchbull, a man of strict principles and high Christian values, is a widower solo parenting his brood of children after the death of his wife.

When her father marries Miss Fanny Knight of Godmersham Park, his daughter Mary Dorothea’s life is suddenly changed. Her new stepmother comes from a large, happy and sociable family, and Fanny’s sisters become Mary’s first friends. Her aunt, Miss Cassandra Austen of Chawton, is especially kind, and Fanny's brothers are not only amusing, but handsome and charming.

As Mary Dorothea starts to bloom into a beautiful young woman, she forms an especial bond with one of the brothers in particular.
Soon, they are deeply in love and determined to marry. They expect no opposition. After all, each is from a good family and has known the other for some years.
It promises to be the most perfect match. Who would possibly want to stand in their way?

The Elopement is the third title in Gill Hornby's series of novels about Jane Austen's sister Cassandra, and the wider Austen family. It is beautifully written, perfectly researched, and the Regency world of family and society is richly rendered and perfectly evoked.

I loved and adored the first two, Miss Austen and Godmersham Park, and thought they could not be bettered, but, in this third title, Gill Hornby has excelled herself and has taken the series to another level.

It is based on the diaries of Fanny Knatchbull (née Knight), and is told in the most delicious Austen-esque prose. It is absolutely pitch-perfect, and I revelled in the pithy remarks, the polite and cleverly cloaked put-downs, the dry wit, the characterisation, and the very grounded observations on a polite society built on a rigid code of manners and expectations.

The characters are deftly drawn and the focus of the narrative alternates between Fanny and Mary. From their respective points of view we can gather impressions of the novel's entire cast of characters, but also get an informed view of the two women themselves. We see how Fanny has a lack of self-awareness, and so little awareness of what is going on around her. There is often a huge dissonance between what she thinks and perceives, and reality itself. We also see how Mary Dorothea is far from the wet lettuce that Fanny has written her of as being, and that she has far more spark, spirit and intelligence.

The character development is very skilful though and over the course of the novel Gill Hornby cleverly ensures that Fanny appears neither completely ridiculous or utterly unlikeable.

As the title suggests, an Elopement does occur, and as the novel's four parts play out like the acts of a play, it handles themes of family, love, marriage, as well as familial and societal expectations, and personal obligation and responsibility.

It is an exploration of the choices open to women at that time: whether to be more pragmatic, accommodating or submissive to expectation and obligation, and marry for security and status, or to marry for love. Both options required enormous courage

In exploring these options the novel also portrays the wider lot of women in Regency England: whether that be the spinster roles of Marianne Knight and Cassandra Austen who become enmeshed in house keeping and child minding, or, marriage and the ensuing lottery of multiple pregnancies which at best affect a woman's energy and health, and at worse result in early death.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Elopement and if you're a Jane Austen fan it won't disappoint! I cannot recommend it highly enough. Thank you to Cornerstone for access to a Netgalley eARC.

I was asked by NetGalley to review this book. I was aware of Miss Austen due to the BBC dramatization of the authors book so was interested to read this as I am a fan Of Pride and Prejudice. I was interested to see how this story would and would this be a good as Miss Austen - I was not disappointed.

This book is essentially about Jane's family and Fanny Knight a niece of Jane. Fanny loses her mother when she was young and helped her father with the running of the house.

Fanny ends up marrying a widower in her twenties - at that time it was important to marry but one had to marry within their social class which Jane Austen explores often. The other aspects - people very rarely married for love and such an emphasis on class and fortunes.

The storyline is good and is well written also. A good recommended read due for publication July 8th 2025.

The Elopement tells the story of Mary Dorothea Knatchbull, the step-daughter of Fanny Austen Knight (late of Godmersham Park and niece of Jane Austen). Mary Dorothea has an awful childhood with her mother dying when she was very young and being left to rot in a boarding school. She keenly feels the death of her mother, the absence of her brothers who are also away at school, and her desire to please her father, Sir Edward.

When he takes her out of school at the age of 13, little does she know her life is starting a new chapter when her father marries Miss Fanny Austen Knight of Godmersham Park. Her hopes for family life are quickly dashed by her new mama, although she spends the next few years enjoying the company and lives of her colourful Austen relatives.

Her social world increases, but with it comes the knowledge of friends falling in love, only for their marriage hopes to be stopped by family and other practicalities – from not enough money to not enough social status. There are whispers of elopement too, a huge scandal for the time. First her poor governess falls in love and is dismissed, followed by Ned Austen Knight, and her dear sister Cassy. Mary Dorothea wonders if she will make a love match and it seems like her parents have their own ideas over a suitable match.

Mary Dorothea falls for Ned Austen Knight, heir to the Godmersham and Chawton estates. When her father forbids her to accept his marriage proposal, the couple elope to Gretna Green, the first place they can legally marry. What would Jane Austen say? Mary Dorothea achieves the love match denied others but at the cost of an estrangement from her family which lasts decades.

I really enjoyed this book. It is so easy to imagine yourself in the magical world of the Knights and Austens at this time and the author brings it all to life vividly. I cried at the injustice of Mary Dorothea passing away so early when she deserved a long life with her children and which she didn’t get to enjoy with her own mother.

This book had a slow start and I wasn’t actually sure who the main character of the story is. I feel it switches between Fanny, the “mother” and Mary, the dutiful daughter. I found my feelings changed towards which character I preferred, constantly switching between Fanny and Mary. The book took us on a journey through many years whilst we read through the family growing up and then the ending!!! Argh! Completely threw me. All in all though I loved the book and it was an easy cosy read and very emotional.

I am a keen reader of books influenced by Jane Austen and her works, and Gill Hornby’s novels are some of the best of these. Although this is not a sequel as such, one of the main characters in ‘The Elopement’ is Fanny Knight, Jane Austen’s niece, who the reader met in ‘Godmersham Park’, and like the earlier novel, this new stand-alone novel benefits from the author’s careful research into the real Fanny Knight’s diaries, which I understand Fanny kept from the age of 11.

The very engaging and well-written plot has two main protagonists, Fanny herself and her step-daughter, Mary Dorothea. I was especially interested in the extent to which Fanny must have either forgotten or ignored her childhood emotions. I assume that her diaries show how little empathy she had for the feelings of others, Mary Dorothea in particular.

I found this book very difficult to put down, racing through it to the satisfying ending, and have no hesitation in recommending it.

I have to say from the outset that I think trying to write in Jane Austen's style is very brave and Gill Hornby's writing does echo in some part Austen's wit and observational writing.
However, it is a pale imitation at best, with heavy overtones of Bridgerton creeping in throughout.
There are two main female protagonists, Fanny and Mary,. Fanny featured in the first of the Godmersham books, but Mary is introduced as a young girl in The Elopement when Fanny marries her widowed father.
Gill Hornby does try to show how Fannny's inability to form a loving relationship with Mary stems from her own fear if saying or doing the wrong thing, but more often than not Fanny comes across as a selfish, jealous and a fairly unattractive character. It is difficult to see how her own family view her as sweet and kind. Mostly she just seems extremely dull witted. Her doting on her own children while more or less ignoring those in her step family is really unattractive, and it is increasingly difficult as the book goes on, to find her at all sympathetic.
Mary is a great deal more fun, and that's where Bridgerton comes in...Mary is a 21st century creation with a Regency facade.
Mary's romance with the impossibly handsome and charming Ned is shown as being so perfect, despite the small matter of an elopement, and the consequent estrangement from her ( let's be honest ghastly) father.
There are far worse Regency style novels, and ,as I have said, there are glimpses of clever writing, but all in all, I was not very taken with The Elopement and I wouldn't look forward to reading another in the series.
Thank you to NetGalley for an earc of this title in return for an honest review of it

Another well written period drama from this author. I found the pacing quite slow, but could visualise the characters, costumes, dialogue extremely well. Fans of historical period drama will enjoy this. Thank you to NetGalley for the review copy.

Another well researched but slightly uneven book based on the lives of those surrounding Jane Austen. Overall I enjoyed this but the authors previous books were more engaging.

Another lovely read from the author of Miss Austen.

This is a further dramatisation of the story of the Austen family - with the usual mix of love versus suitability, men v women, and of course social expectations.

Many dramas happen throughout the story, and there's a whole mixture of emotions going on with the characters.

An easy, comfortable and entertaining read.

One of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s a delight - by turns refreshing, funny, romantic, poignant, touching and always very alight to both the flaws and the charms of its characters and their interactions with each other. So many authors are called an inheritor to Jane Austen it’s almost lost all meaning, but this really lives up to that label - both in the social satire and the depth of feeling. I found myself picking it up again to read just a bit more while I should have been doing other things.

It’s based on the true story of some of Jane and Cassandra Austen’s relations, and as such doesn’t follow all the narrative conventions you’d expect, it’s not strictly a romance novel. But it’s deeply satisfying.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Only when reading the epilogue did I come to understand why I disliked Fanny, one of the protagonists, so much – the novelist wrote from Fanny's diaries, which she kept from the age of 11 to her late 80s. I kept wondering why one of the main characters, with whom we are given access to her thoughts, was so very disagreeable and downright mean at times. Then it made sense - the novelist had to follow the material she had and make it as readable as possible. But Mary Dorothea, the other main character, her daughter by marriage, was much more compelling.

I should have remembered that there was a family tree at the beginning of the book to refer to; it was hard to keep all of the characters straight.

I don't regret reading this novel; I enjoyed her first one on the subject, Miss Austen (turned into a period drama), but didn't find it as wonderful of a reading experience as the first.

A well researched book set in Jane Austen’s family. We start with her niece Fanny being married. A great reflection of the lack of choices for women of the time and both the danger and the importance of producing heirs.

The fact that some of the characters were pretty hideous reflects on the time and I think Austen herself would have enjoyed the human depictions of her family.

I loved the nods to Austen as the story unfolded.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the copy to review.

It was great that I had recently read Godmersham Park so to almost jump straight back in was fantastic.

So rich in History and a beautiful yet sometimes tough read with how the world worked back then.

I loved following the Austin’s and their descendants . I’m a big fan of Jane Austin and this did not disappoint.

One of my favourite books is Pride and Prejudice so I was really looking forward to reading The Elopement, a novel about Jane Austen’s family. One of the main characters is Fanny Knight, a niece of Janet Austen who having lost her mother at a young age helped her father run the household until she married a widower when she was in her late twenties. As with Pride and Prejudice what this book shows so clearly is the class divide during these times. Women had no control over their own lives and although the only escape was to marry, only a suitor from the same social class as their own was acceptable. It would not do to marry someone of an inferior class and love just didn’t come into a suitable match. Fanny waited a long time for a suitable husband and could so easily have been left running her father’s household. Quite surprisingly this did not make her more empathetic with her younger sisters and she was quite willing to pass judgment on her sisters and her stepdaughter’s potential husbands.
There is talk in the novel between two of the characters of equality between the sexes but that does seem a long way off even though one match made did appear to be more of a partnership.
This was a delightful novel made even more enjoyable by the appearance of Cassandra Austen who played such an important role in the lives of some of her brother’s children. I adored it!
Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Books for an advance copy in return for a honest review.

Gill Hornby has followed up Miss Austen and Godmersham Park with the story of Fanny Knight and Mary Dorothea Knatchbull., set in the early Nineteenth century. Fanny marries Mary’s widowed father, Sir Edward, an older, stern, strict man with a fiery temper, who struck me as being a bit too much of a stereotype. So Fanny becomes Mary’s stepmother. The pair do not hit it off but Mary becomes close to Fanny’s siblings.
Because it is called The Elopement we assume that such a thing will happen at some point. Relationships which didn’t meet the approval of families forced young people to elope to Gretna Green from England in those days.
The book starts off with a prologue featuring Cassandra Austen, sister of Jane and aunt to Fanny, and refers to an “event “ which I took to mean an elopement. The story then focuses on Fanny and her proposal from Sir Edward. Fanny was a real person and the book is in part based on her real-life diaries as the author admits in a note. However, I found Fanny to be a largely unsympathetic character and also one who had little perception of what was really going on around her.. As a wife, she is completely subservient to her husband which of course women mainly had to be at that time but I didn’t really feel any sympathy for her as a character because of how she treated her step-daughter, Mary. Mary is the most sympathetic character in the book and the narrative switches from Fanny to her for a lot of the novel and became more interesting.
As a historical novel it does examine how women faced great difficulties in finding a husband: it usually wasn’t up to them to choose the man. Their father often made the choice for them. But I liked how Mary developed into a strong and independent woman despite her circumstances and predicament. If you’re a fan of Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Brontes it’s for you, though the narrative did jump about a bit and the male characters are rather underdeveloped. Towards the end it felt a bit rushed whereas the pace at the start was a bit slow.
Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Books for an advance copy in return for a honest review.

I enjoyed this so much!

The Elopement is the delightful story of Mary Dorothea Knatchbull and her relationship with the Austen (or Austen Knight) family. It's a wonderfully romantic story woven around Jane Austen's real family and their history and told in a thoroughly creditable Austenesque manner. It's very clever and very readable.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, it was interesting, romantic and very informative. I enjoyed the array of characters and the relationships between the Knights and Knuckbulls. I have made a few notes for spelling/ grammar if I could email them to anyone if they would be of use please let me know. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in period dramas, history and romance. Thank you for sending me the book to read and review and I look forward to any future books you publish.

Great story of the descendants of Jane Austen… and how love and responsibility can shape our actions, whoever we are.

Gill Hornby is great author who has the ability to use her imagination to build on the factual diaries of Fanny Austen (as was)… and turn it into a story that is engaging and yet felt very realistic. Good characterisation, dialogue and events mean that I enjoyed every minute.

When I started this book, I hadn’t realised that it was the third in a series - with the first being televised on BBC1 at present “Miss Austen”. Great characterisation and revolves around Fanny, Miss Austen’s niece - and her siblings and family sagas.

I really enjoyed this book - and then went straight back to read Miss Austen - which I had purchased several years ago!

4.5*