For everyone who loved Pride and Prejudice—and legions of historical fiction lovers—an inspired debut novel set in Austen’s world. Charlotte Collins, nee Lucas, is the respectable wife of Hunsford’s vicar, and sees to her duties by rote: keeping house, caring for their adorable daughter, visiting parishioners, and patiently tolerating the lectures of her awkward husband and his condescending patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Intelligent, pragmatic, and anxious to escape the shame of spinsterhood, Charlotte chose this life, an inevitable one so socially acceptable that its quietness threatens to overwhelm her. Then she makes the acquaintance of Mr. Travis, a local farmer and tenant of Lady Catherine.. In Mr. Travis’ company, Charlotte feels appreciated, heard, and seen. For the first time in her life, Charlotte begins to understand emotional intimacy and its effect on the heart—and how breakable that heart can be. With her sensible nature confronted, and her own future about to take a turn, Charlotte must now question the role of love and passion in a woman’s life, and whether they truly matter for a clergyman’s wife.

If you loved Bridgerton, you'll love this . . . She married for her future. But then she fell in love . . . Enter the world of Jane Austen and be swept up in a beautiful star-crossed romance, for fans of the TV series Bridgerton and Julia Quinn's novels. ______________________________ Charlotte Collins is the dutiful wife of Hunsford's vicar. Although it may not be perfect, her marriage allows her security, and so she patiently tolerates Mr Collins' awkward lectures and cares for their young daughter. But there's more to Charlotte than she'd have you think. Fiercely intelligent and pragmatic, Charlotte yearns for something more. When she meets Mr Travis, a local farmer, Charlotte starts to feel a spark of something she has never felt before. Could it be desire? Could it even be love? And will she listen to what her head is telling her or should she follow her heart? Escape into the world of Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet one more time with this charming, poignant story for fans of Bridgerton, Miss Austen by Gill Hornby and Longbourn by Jo Baker. _____________________________ WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING 'Excellent...the well-crafted prose captures perfectly the relationship dynamics and the time period. I honestly cannot say enough to praise the quality of The Clergyman's Wife. If you enjoy subtle historical "slice of life" novels, then you really need to read this one!' Amazon Reviewer 'Molly Greeley manages to tell Charlotte's story in a refreshingly contemporary style while at the same time keeping the reader's feet firmly planted in a time gone by' Shannon Winslow, author of The Darcys of Pemberley 'A total pleasure to read! Greeley has captured Austen's tone and has updated her style a bit to write a terrific read not only for Austen fans but for others as well' Amazon Reviewer 'Ideal for fans of Austen's work, Greeley's strong debut also stands on its own' Publishers Weekly 'There is nothing better than a book that makes you want to stop time! I truly felt taken away ... Taken away in the beautiful use of language, and a truly magnificent storyline. You'll need some time to spend frolicking with Charlotte and her family and friends through her days, because you won't want to put the book down' Amazon Reviewer

A moving story of unexpected love featuring Charlotte from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. 'Poignant, pensive and brilliant ...' Laurel Ann Nattress, editor of Jane Austen Made Me Do It.

The author of Excellent Women explores female friendship and the quiet yearnings of British middle-class life—a literary delight for fans of Jane Austen. Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates were close friends at Oxford University, but now live very different lives. Forty-one-year-old Jane lives in the country, is married to a vicar, has a daughter she adores, and lives a very proper life in a very proper English parish. Prudence, a year shy of thirty, lives in London, has an office job, and is self-sufficient and fiercely independent—until Jane decides her friend should be married. Jane has the perfect husband in mind for her former pupil: a widower named Fabian Driver. But there are other women vying for Fabian’s attention. And Pru is nursing her own highly inappropriate desire for her older, married, and seemingly oblivious employer, Dr. Grampian. What follows is a witty, delightful, trenchant story of manners, morals, family, and female bonding that redefines the social novel for a new generation.

Excellent Women is probably the most famous of Barbara Pym's novels. The acclaim a few years ago for this early comic novel, which was hailed by Lord David Cecil as one of 'the finest examples of high comedy to have appeared in England during the past seventy-five years,' helped launch the rediscovery of the author's entire work. Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a spinster in the England of the 1950s, one of those 'excellent women' who tend to get involved in other people's lives - such as those of her new neighbor, Rockingham, and the vicar next door. This is Barbara Pym's world at its funniest.

"Charlotte Collins, nee Lucas, is the respectable wife of Hunsford's vicar, and sees to her duties by rote: keeping house, caring for their adorable daughter, visiting parishioners, and patiently tolerating the lectures of her awkward husband and his condescending patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Intelligent, pragmatic, and anxious to escape the shame of spinsterhood, Charlotte chose this life, an inevitable one so socially acceptable that its quietness threatens to overwhelm her. Then she makes the acquaintance of Mr. Travis, a local farmer and tenant of Lady Catherine. In Mr. Travis' company, Charlotte feels appreciated, heard, and seen. For the first time in her life Charlotte begins to understand emotional intimacy and its effect on the heart - and how breakable that heart can be. With her sensible nature confronted, and her own future about to take a turn, Charlotte must now question the role of love and passion in a woman's life, and whether they truly matter for a clergyman's wife."--Publisher description.

I thought ease would come, here, tucked away in the safe uneventfulness of Hunsford. It would seem I was mistaken. In 1813, upon her marriage to Mr Collins, the rector of Hunsford Parsonage, Charlotte Collins née Lucas left her childhood home in Hertfordshire for Kent, where she is set to live out her life as the parson's wife, in an endless procession of dinners at Rosings Park, household chores, correspondence, and minding her poultry. But Mrs Collins carries with her a secret, a peculiar preference, which is destined to turn all her carefully laid plans on their head. Lucas is a queer romance, a mock-epistolary novel, and a retelling and continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, teeming with Regency references and Sturm und Drang. It is an homage to English literature--and a brazen, revisionist fan fiction. But, first and foremost, it is a love story. Read it as you will.