I'm not one for swooning but that letter had my limbs feeling quite faint. What a moment. Loved it.

The book is a delight, Ann is a complex character packed full of doubts even as she exhibits the usual Austen heroine traits of good judgement, excellent decorum and refined taste. The characters around her are the classic mixture of good, bad, and hilariously horrible.

It doesn't tie everything off into a satisfying tight little package like Pride and Prejudice but that isn't the point of this book. The central plot is based around a decade old missed opportunity, add to that the unresolved economic situation, the character threads left hanging, the strange unexpected matches, and it becomes a novel about the randomness of life, the moments that are passed by or that happen to come together.

I rate that.