This book attracted my interest from the outset - as a big Austen fan as well as historical fiction fan, why would I not enjoy a novel imagining where the story picked off after Pride & Prejudice ends? The novel tells the story from Charlotte Lucas's perspective, a character that always intrigued me when I was younger in settling for a marriage where she was not in love. Now with an older head on my shoulders and a better understanding of a woman's lot in the 18th century, I hold far more interest in how her story would have unfolded.
It started out very well - it is atmospheric and transports you into the mediocre setting of a rural 18th century household. Charlotte has lost a young child. Meanwhile her friend Elizabeth Bennett seems unable to carry a child at all. I'd have kept more interest were it not for things seeming a bit unbelievable as a love story/affair crept into the storyline. I began to lose interest, however there were interesting aspects throughout including the imagined stories of all five Bennett sisters.
Of course this is not Austen, and perhaps the missing factor for me was the humour & wit that permeated the original P&P story. It would however be unfair to compare the two - this is a story in itself after all, but the comparisons are inevitable and ultimately I found myself skim reading the latter half after such a promising first third.
It started out very well - it is atmospheric and transports you into the mediocre setting of a rural 18th century household. Charlotte has lost a young child. Meanwhile her friend Elizabeth Bennett seems unable to carry a child at all. I'd have kept more interest were it not for things seeming a bit unbelievable as a love story/affair crept into the storyline. I began to lose interest, however there were interesting aspects throughout including the imagined stories of all five Bennett sisters.
Of course this is not Austen, and perhaps the missing factor for me was the humour & wit that permeated the original P&P story. It would however be unfair to compare the two - this is a story in itself after all, but the comparisons are inevitable and ultimately I found myself skim reading the latter half after such a promising first third.