Luxury Hour

A short story by Sarah Hall from the collection Reader, I Married Him: Stories inspired by Jane Eyre.

In ‘Luxury Hour’, a new mother encounters an old lover after her daily swim and inexplicably lies to him.

Edited by Tracy Chevalier, the full collection, Reader, I Married Him, brings together some of the finest and most creative voices in fiction today, to celebrate and salute the strength and lasting relevance of Charlotte Brontë’s game-changing novel and its beloved narrator.

Reviews

Praise for the full collection, READER, I MARRIED HIM:

‘Dazzling’ DAILY MAIL

‘The success of this book owes much to [Chevalier’s] enthusiasm … it’s quite amazing to see the quality of work on show’ EVENING STANDARD

‘A terrific set of stories by some of our leading novelists, each of whom engages with a chosen aspect of Jane Eyre’ THE NEW STATESMAN

‘A clever idea well-executed; a treat for fans of short fiction and for Brontë's many ardent fans’ KIRKUS REVIEWS

‘Exemplary…written by some of today's best female writers’ THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

‘These pieces create a beguiling picture of women and men and desire, in which everyone is searching, like Jane, for happiness and wondering whether marriage is really an answer. The book acts as a prism spreading all kinds of literary and historical refractions, and it’s a reminder that Charlotte Brontë, too, has many sides’ GLOBE AND MAIL

About the author

Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria in 1974. She is the
prize-winning author of five novels – Haweswater, The
Electric Michelangelo, The Carhullan Army, How to Paint
a Dead Man and The Wolf Border – as well as The Beautiful
Indifference, a collection of short stories which won the
Portico and Edge Hill prizes. The first story in the collection,
“Butchers Perfume”, was shortlisted for the BBC National
Short Story Award, a prize she won in 2013 with “Mrs Fox”.