Under the Wide and Starry Sky (CD Audiobook) - 9780307576538

From Nancy Horan, New York Times bestselling author of Loving Frank, comes her much-anticipated second novel, which tells the improbable love story of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his tempestuous American wife, Fanny.

At the age of thirty-five, Fanny van de Grift Osbourne has left her philandering husband in San Francisco to set sail for Belgium—with her three children and nanny in tow—to study art. It is a chance for this adventurous woman to start over, to make a better life for all of them, and to pursue her own desires. Not long after her arrival, however, tragedy strikes, and Fanny and her children repair to a quiet artists’ colony in France where she can recuperate. Emerging from a deep sorrow, she meets a lively Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, ten years her junior, who falls instantly in love with the earthy, independent, and opinionated “belle Americaine.”

Fanny does not immediately take to the slender young lawyer who longs to devote his life to writing—and who would eventually pen such classics as Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In time, though, she succumbs to Stevenson’s charms, and the two begin a fierce love affair—marked by intense joy and harrowing darkness—that spans the decades and the globe. The shared life of these two strong-willed individuals unfolds into an adventure as impassioned and unpredictable as any of Stevenson’s own unforgettable tales.

Praise for Nancy Horan’s Loving Frank
Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and The Christian Science Monitor

“Enthralling . . . Mamah Borthwick Cheney wasn't just any woman, but Horan makes her into an enigmatic Everywoman—a symbol of both the freedoms women yearn to have and of the consequences that may await when they try to take them.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A staggering read, a complex tale of the love affair between two eccentric, intelligent and unforgettable characters . . . Though it is very much a literary novel, sparks fly off the page.”—Rocky Mountain News

“In Mamah, Horan creates an unforgettably complex heroine.”—The Washington Post

“Reveals what we expect to get from great fiction: timeless truths about ourselves.”—New York Daily News

“A beautifully designed, innovative and noteworthy work of art.”—Chicago Tribune

“Compelling . . . a page-turning love story.”—The Plain Dealer

“Unexpectedly powerful.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


From the Hardcover edition.