'I am half agony, half hope.'
 
Anne Elliot lost the love of her life eight years earlier and the sorrow lingers on. Yet the dashing captain Wentworth did not desert her; it was Anne who rejected him because she was persuaded that she could make a better match.
 
she never did.
 
Sudenly, life deals them a second chance. Anne and Wentworth meet once again on the social circuit. he acts coolly and even openly courts a younger woman, yet Anne remains painfully alert for the slightest hint that thei love might be rekindled.
 
Persuasion was Austen's last novel, published posthumously in 1818.