“Fans of I Capture the Castle will love this delicious confection.”—Polly Shulman, author of Enthusiasm

“Take one Austenian heroine in desperate financial straits, put her in a crumbling castle, give her two evil stepsisters and some very unsuitable suitors. Make it funny! Patrice Kindl’s Keeping the Castle is an absolute charmer!”—Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

Seventeen-year-old Althea bears a heavy burden on her slender shoulders. She must support her widowed mother, young brother, and two stepsisters who plead poverty—and she must maintain Crawley Castle, a tumbledown folly designed and built by her great-grandfather. Althea, in short, must marry well. But there are few wealthy suitors—or suitors of any kind—in their small Yorkshire town of Lesser Hoo.

Then the young, attractive, and very rich Lord Boring comes to stay with his aunt and uncle. Althea immediately starts a clever stealthy campaign to become Lady Boring. There's only one problem: his friend and business manager Mr. Fredericks keeps getting in the way. And, as it turns out, Fredericks has his own set of plans . . .