Jane Austen fans, rejoice! (a book review)

 Since this blog is entitled "Kneads and Reads", I hope for every recipe I post I also will give you a great book recommendation. I'm lucky enough to work in a library where almost any book I could possibly dream of I could have access to, and writing book reviews is just enough of a challenge that it never gets dull. I'm often on Goodreads.com if you'd like more of my book reviews.

If I had to pick a favorite genre, I have to admit I'm a huge sucker for historical fiction novels. There's something about the setting, the imagination of the author, taking me on a travelogue to a place and time that makes me sink into my couch and want to make a cup of tea. I've loved it since I was a kid, trying to make sense of the world and my place in it. One of my favorites this year was "The Other Bennet Sister" by Janice Hadlow. First and foremost: COVERLY LOVE!!

Just look at her face. She has a story to tell, doesn't she?

I did not want this book to end. I'd give it 6 stars on Goodreads if I could. The fan fiction of Jane Austen is legion; the characters, either set in Regency England or contemporary American society are truly innumerable. Janice Hadlow however, has set herself apart by not just staying true to Austen's beloved Bennet characters, but actually capturing the beautiful language and the "said-but-not-said" wit of Austen in her dialogue. This might be Hadlow's first novel, I hope it's truly not her last.
Mary Bennet is the much-maligned Bennet sister, content in Austen's novels to take a back seat with her book and spectacles and sniff haughtily at the flightiness of all of her sisters. Here, she is insecure, shamed, and a voracious reader desperate for love and understanding from her family. She struggles to be understood in the aftermath of her two older sisters' spectacularly successful marriages, and the plight of an unmarried daughter of a gentleman who no one truly understands has new meaning here in Hadlow's narrative.

If you are an Austen fan--you owe it to yourself to take yourself there again in Hadlow's elegant prose.


It's a hefty book, but oof. So, SO good.