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Also by Sally Smith O'Rourke:

Christmas At Sea Pine Cottage, October 2008
Paperback
The Maidenstone Lighthouse, September 2007
Paperback
The Man Who Loved Jane Austen, April 2006
Trade Size

THE MAN WHO LOVED JANE AUSTEN
By: Sally Smith O'Rourke

Kensington
April 2006
On Sale: April 4, 2006
Featuring: Eliza Knight; Fitzwilliam Darcy
288 pages
ISBN: 075821037X
EAN: 9780758210371
Trade Size
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Romance

What if you found a 200-year-old love letter written from a fictional character to the writer who created him? And what if, next to that letter, was another addressed to this character . . . from the author herself? Truth may be stranger than fiction, but one woman is about to find out what happens when fiction becomes truth…

New York artist Eliza Knight certainly did not realize it at the time, but her life changed when she bought the old, beat-up vanity table one lazy Sunday afternoon. Tucked away behind the mirror she found two letters, one sealed, but one already opened:

“May 12th, 1810. Dearest Jane, the Captain has found me out. I am being forced to go into hiding immediately. But if I am able, I shall still be waiting at the same spot tonight. Then you will know everything you wish to know. F. Darcy.”

F. Darcy? Fitzwilliam Darcy, the fictional hero of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice? Even more mysterious was the other letter, sealed and never read—from Jane to Darcy. Could this man, possibly the most romantic character ever written and the hero of Eliza’s favorite novel, have been a real person? Eliza’s initial guarded curiosity turns to astonishment as scientific testing confirms the sealed letter was indeed addressed by Jane Austen. But she is completely baffled by the revelation that the other letter, though proven to be from the same time period—was written by an American.

Caught between the routine of her present life and the intrigue of these incredible discoveries from the past, Eliza decides to look deeper. Her research leads to a majestic, 200-year-old estate in Virginia’s breathtaking Shenandoah Valley where she meets the one man who may hold the answer. But he also has a secret, one he has kept hidden for years. Now, as the real story of Fitzwilliam Darcy unfolds, Eliza finds her life has become a modern-day romance, one that perhaps only Jane Austen herself could have so eloquently written.