A Matter of Persuasion

Theresa Howes

EIGHT years ago, 19-year-old Amy Eaton was reluctantly persuaded to break off her engagement to Frank Wareham, the man she loved, because he didn’t match her family’s wealth or social standing in New York society.

Amy was talked into making the break by a friend of her late mother and it’s a decision that she still regrets.But now Wareham has returned to the city and he’s no longer an engineering student with limited prospects... he’s a rich and successful self-made man, and he’s looking for a wife.  

As any aficionado of romance stories will tell you, there is no more alluring plot than a heart-fluttering tale of second chances and the reigniting a love affair that was thought to be forever lost. And if that age-old theme rings a bell with fans of Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion then you are in for a treat with this enchanting new take on the unforgettable romance that has love, loss and longing written straight through its red-hot heart. Brought up on a reading diet of 19^th century novels by literary giants like Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and George Eliot, author Theresa Howes (pictured below) always had a special bond with Austen, that other English great, and A Matter of Persuasion is her own special ‘love letter’ to a timeless classic.

Set in 1882, at the heart of America’s famous Gilded Age – a period in which Howes see many similarities in terms of the preoccupation with social class, codes of behaviour and wealth – this is a glorious, giddying whirl of gorgeous gowns, high society histrionics, emotional upheaval, and an unspoken passion that sets the story on fire.

At the age of 27, Amy Eaton may have ‘passed the bloom of youth’ but she has achieved fame as a bestselling authoress. It’s a source of pride for Amy but the cause of much embarrassment for her family who live on upmarket Fifth Avenue, are proudly ‘old money’ and see her professionalism as an impropriety. Despite their undisguised scorn for her, sensible daughter Amy is bound by a promise she made to her dying mother to look after her two sisters and father who is now an aimless widower... and that is getting increasingly difficult because of their outrageous spending habits.

Amy’s life has been overshadowed by giving up on the love of her life, Frank Wareham, after her mother’s best friend, Mrs Rawle, persuaded her not to marry him because a marriage grounded

on ‘love’ alone wouldn’t last. And besides, Amy was told, Wareham ‘didn’t have a cent to his name’ and having ‘an impoverished husband and countless children’ would impede her ambition to be an authoress. But America has changed... vast fortunes are being made by entrepreneurs who are forcing the country through an industrial revolution and one such wealthy man is Frank Wareham, newly returned to New York and in search of a wife.

Doing her best to forget the life she might have had with Wareham – the man she still loves and has seen many times in her dreams over the years – Amy must learn how to navigate her small social circle without letting her true feelings show. But as new and unexpected situations arise, will Amy defy expectations and choose her own path?

Howes’ aim in writing A Matter of Persuasion was always to honour the things she loves most about Austen’s work and to do it with a ‘fondness’ and ‘a little playfulness’ that the great author would have recognised and approved of. And she certainly captures the spirit of Persuasion as we enjoy observing the parallel characters in a new and vibrant American setting with players acting out what is still essentially a heart-fluttering and engrossing romance within a similarly narrow and unforgiving genteel society.

As for our smart and long-suffering heroine Amy Eaton, there is more than a touch of Cinderella in her martyred life as she struggles to keep a lid on the finances of her spendthrift family and is forced to put up with the antics and disdain of her feckless father and her two demanding, thankless and imperious sisters. But Amy retains the intelligence, accomplishments and understated attractiveness that readers love in Austen’s Anne Elliot, and Rhode Island proves to be the perfect backdrop for the dramas that famously played out on the harbour wall known as the Cobb in Lyme Regis, Dorset.

With a sexual chemistry that sizzles and seduces, all the lavish splendour of American society in its 19^th century heyday, and a gripping plot full of intrigue and societal shenanigans, Howes gives us Austen with a glitzy, glamorous glow that shines just as brightly as the eternal bestseller, and is a fitting tribute to a much-loved classic.
(HQ, paperback, £9.99)