Lord Moira's Echo

Jane Austen had at least a taste of London high life. In 1813 a barouche drove her around town in what she called “solitary elegance.” Two years later, after a tour of his palatial Carlton House, she was invited to dedicate her last lifetime novel, Emma, to the Prince Regent. What if she had moved in such circles earlier? What if she had fallen in love? What if her banker brother, Henry Austen, had been caught in a web of corruption that did more than destroy his own enterprises? Lord Moira’s Echo is both a love story and a tale of dark intrigue. It draws on unpublished archives to introduce an historical character who might have met Jane Austen during the very years when almost nothing is known about her. The story is told from two perspectives, Lord Moira’s own, and that of a young Canadian musician, Vanessa Horwood, who was the protagonist of Stuart Bennett’s previous novel, The Perfect Visit.