Welcome to the website of bestselling author Paula Byrne

Jane Austen biography controversy

I spoke to the Sunday Times about this in order to explain why it wasn’t possible for me to submit the review they commissioned: it would have been hard to be objective! But I am making no further comment to journalists. It is all a bit of a storm in a fine china teacup, perhaps with cake (but then, as Jane Austen said, “You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me”) 

Kick biography now out in paperback: it was a No.1 Bestseller in London & Top 3 Bestseller in the Kennedys’ Irish homeland …

Brilliant and sympathetic … sentence by sentence, the book is a joy    (The Guardian)

sparkling … fast-paced … transfixing   (Sunday Times)

This absolutely enthralling biography is written by an expert hand, Paula Byrne, having already penned widely acclaimed bios of both Evelyn Waugh and Jane Austen. Her narrative is deceptively easy and fluid, cleverly belying the enormous weight and variety of her source materials     (Irish Independent)

Byrne conjures such a vivid portrait of her enchanting heroine that one almost feels deprived never having met her    (Daily Mail)

an exciting, heartbreakingly tense love story     (Kirkus Review)

written with panache … as engaging as its subject (Sunday Express)

A fun-loving American charms the English aristocracy with her wit and sangfroid, overcoming prejudice to win the heart of London’s most eligible bachelor …  Paula Byrne … recaptures her brief but fascinating story     (Vogue)