Lilly M Neal

Lilly M Bullion grew up in the suburbs of Ohio and loved reading from an early age. Lilly’s first exposure to the works of Jane Austen was reading “Pride and Prejudice” in high school. Having been strong in English throughout school, Lilly went to a Christian liberal arts college in Indiana--Huntington University--where her love of English grammar and especially Victorian literature blossomed. She graduated with a B.A. in English.

Reading became sight when years later she finally got to visit England, the land of her favorite authors Austen, the Brontės, Dickens, and Hardy. Those trips afforded her research material for the novel: the character of Mrs. Trumble is based off a woman Lilly met at a festival celebrating Jane Austen in Bath, England; the term “eavesdropping” was explained to her on a tour of Bath and factors into the opening scene of the Trumbles walking up the street; and close observers may notice place names that also pay homage to Bath.

Lilly’s life took a dramatic change when she moved from Kentucky to Austin, Texas, where she lives with her cat, Moustache, and owns her own business in professional organizing. From there, another great turn came when she married her husband, Shane, and inherited a farm back in Ohio. Oh, what a life!