‘The Jane Austen beach book fans have been waiting for.’

So goes the billing for Paula Byrne’s Six Weeks By The Sea: The Summer Jane Austen Fell in Love in Kirkus book reviews.

The reviewer quotes Austen scholar Byrne as saying: “One of the questions I am most frequently asked about Jane Austen is ‘Did she ever fall in love?’ Surely, people say, the world’s most famous and beloved author of romantic novels—the creator of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth—must once have been in love herself?”

‘Byrne, the author of multiple nonfiction books about Jane Austen and her world, answers the question posed in her afterword with a cleverly imagined love story woven over a scaffolding of fact.’

A revelation made by Jane Austen’s sister, ten years after her death, gestures to a brief, intense relationship one summer holiday at Sidmouth.

Byrne tells the story of this encounter, dramatising what has been lost to history. Jane’s relationship with two, very different, men brings about unexpected surprises – by summer’s end, the course of her life will have changed forever.

Set against the backdrop of Austen’s family, the tensions of the Napoleonic Wars, and naval and colonial politics, Byrne’s novel is the story of how our most celebrated romance writer first fell in love.

Paula Byrne will be in conversation with Jo Willett on Monday 3 November at 12 noon in the Bull Hotel ballroom.

Tickets from Bridport Tourist Information Centre on 01308 424901.