The Austenites

About The Austenites:

For lovers of Jane Austen, The Austenites offers a lovely basket of gifts. Satirical Regency sensibilities are combined with an alternative WWII British history, where a group of quirky aristocrats join forces with the British military to undertake a construction project which will protect Chawton, Austen's last home, from Nazi bombs.

These toffs come under the supervision of a reluctant military officer, Major Elias McBride, himself sidelined from combat by a serious war injury. Hardly a fan of Jane Austen himself, Elias finds Professor Mabel Durrell, who is the guiding personality of the project, haughty and insufferable. Lady Durrell finds him resentful, uncultured and insufficiently refined. Even as these two characters pick and bicker, the group somehow manages to complete their project, succeeding in assuring greater safety and protection for Chawton for generations to come.

About the author:

Beatriz Seelaender is a Brazilian author from São Paulo. She has a BA in both English and Portuguese from University of São Paulo, and is currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Classical Reception Studies, also from the University of São Paulo. 

Seelaender wrote her first novel in her native language when she was fourteen. Since she began writing in English, she has received several awards. "The Austenites" earned her the inaugural Sandy Run Novella Award. She has also won the Abstract Elephant Censorship and Freedom contest, The Black Spring Press's Bottom Drawer Prize, and the Columbia Scholastic Press Gold Circle Award in the categories of experimental fiction and humor writing. Her work has been published in multiple literary magazines, notably, Grub Street, Mayday, Guesthouse, and Inverted Syntax. She has more work forthcoming in Black Spring Press and Diachroneity Books.