Period dramas don’t usually capture my attention (I’ve never even watched Downton Abbey) but when I heard about BBC One’s big drama of the season, Miss Austen, and the literary mystery at its heart, my interest was piqued. This wasn’t just women swanning around in impractically large dresses pining after men and powdering their noses, this was a story with a very real mystery at its heart, one which it attempts to solve. Throw in a starring role from the inimitable Keeley Hawes and consider me hooked.

I must admit, I knew very little of Jane Austen’s life before watching the series. I had no idea she had a sister, Cassandra, who was integral to Jane’s development as a writer, nor had I heard of this great mystery that has apparently long puzzled Jane Austen fans: why did Cassandra burn her famous sister’s letters after her death?

While some fans consider it an act of historical vandalism, others believe she did it to protect her late sister’s legacy. No one knows why she did it, but this series, based on Gill Hornby’s bestselling novel of the same name, offers a theory through a captivating reimagining of events worthy of any Jane Austen novel.

Set in 1840, 23 years after Jane’s death, Cassandra, played by Hawes, is compelled to go looking for letters Jane wrote as a teenager. She knows they have to be somewhere at the vicarage in Kintbury and is intent on finding them before her prying sister-in-law, Mary Austen, played by Jessica Hynes, does (and who has some wonderfully pointed verbal exchanges with Hawes’ Cassandra).

On finding the letters, Cassandra is transported back to her youth, and through flashbacks we meet a young Cassy (Synnøve Karlsen) and Jane (Patsy Ferran) as they navigate the ups, downs, hopes, dreams and fears of growing up as young women in the 1800s.

As with any great Austen novel (you sort of forget you’re not watching a Jane Austen adaptation, so wonderfully does the writing capture the author’s voice), it’s a tale of love but not the one we’re used to seeing on screen. Refreshingly, the romantic love stories play second fiddle to the central great love story that is Jane and Cassandra.

As someone with one brother, I find it fascinating to watch and read stories that delve into the complexities and power of sisterhood, and Miss Austen does that in spades. When Cassandra utters the line, “There is no greater comfort in this world than a sister,” you feel she means it with every fibre of her being. The sisters share an intense, unbreakable bond that lasts long after Jane’s death, as evidenced by Hawes’ excellent, if heart-breaking, portrayal of a woman bound by duty, love and grief.

Rose Leslie rounds out the all-female powerhouse cast as Isabella, the niece of Cassandra’s long-dead fiancé, and together with Hawes, Hynes, Karlsen and Ferran, the five actresses perfectly capture what it was like to move through the world as a woman in the 19th century. In a time when marriage gave women status, stability and security, Miss Austen explores what happened when women followed and defied what was expected of them.

Hawes’ Cassandra is a character as compelling as any Jane Austen heroine and, whether you’re a period drama sceptic like me or a die-hard fan of all things set hundreds of years ago, I challenge anyone not to be hooked by this beautifully emotional tale of sisterhood, grief and love in all forms.

The first episode of Miss Austen airs on BBC One Sunday 2 February at 9pm, and the full series will be available on BBC iPlayer the same day.

Images: BBC/Robert Viglasky; Bonnie Productions/MASTERPIECE