Natalie Jenner
I have wanted to be a writer since I was three years old, before I could even read. I was your typical bookworm growing up, nose always in a book, anything from Henry James to Judith Krantz. I was thrilled to learn I could keep reading books at university on my way to getting a real job as a lawyer. While working and parenting, I wrote five different novels which I sent out to hundreds of agents. After decades of no success, I gave up my childhood dream of being a published writer and instead opened a small independent bookshop by the shore of Lake Ontario in Canada.
Four months later, life threw one of its infamous curveballs when my husband was diagnosed with a rare and terminal form of lung disease called IPF. We were forced to close down the shop to attend to the escalating financial, family and healthcare needs.
I turned to reading Jane Austen for comfort during this time. Austen’s books have given me solace throughout my life, but this time their themes of community, grief and resilience resonated for me more deeply and profoundly than ever before. Intrigued by my new emotional response to her work, I next started to read every book on Austen that I could find, and even took a trip on my own to the small English village of Chawton where she had once lived, wanting to immerse myself in the beauty and the history of her own life’s story.
All of this turned out to be unintentional research for the book that lay ahead—a book that I had no idea I was about to write. Meanwhile life went on; our daughter finished high school; my husband’s lung decline began to stabilize with rare and innovative treatment, so much so that I write this with him still in good and productive health. With this new hope came inner peace, and with that a sense of freedom: for me, a state of mind that is critical to creativity. For the first time in years, I wanted to write again. And my daughter recalls that one day, out of the blue, I looked up from my reading and said, very simply, “I am going to write a book about a group of people who come together to save Jane Austen’s house.”
And that is still the tag-line for my debut novel.
All of my books are, not coincidentally, about how art can connect us, and comfort us, and even save us in challenging times. You will notice that there are not a lot of family members in my books—as a writer, I am most intrigued by whom we choose to love. Friendship has always struck me as one of the great joys in life, and community as one of its greatest sources of comfort and support. Most of all, given my own story, I love writing about people who fight to stay engaged with life, no matter the challenges that inevitably lie ahead. As one of my characters in The Jane Austen Society observes, life never completely gives up on us, if we don’t give up on it.
During this extremely difficult time, my greatest wish for my books is that you will find comfort in their words, hope for the future, and renewed faith in us all.
Thank you for visiting my website, and please stay safe and well.
