The Kidnapping of Miss Elisabeth Bennet

A Pride & Prejudice Variation

By: Elise Daubery

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Mrs Bennet's new baby is tragically stolen from her nursery when the child is just a week old.
Oldest child Jane is one year old: with Elisabeth missing, her mourning mother eventually produces three more girls, leaving Mr Bennet without an heir to inherit Longbourn.
Ten years later neighbour Sir William Lucas happens to intervene in a domestic dispute between a gypsy and his dirty ragged daughter. The brutish gypsy flees and abandons the pale, emaciated child, leaving Sir William to place her with a tenant farmer on his estate.
Charlotte Lucas happens to be present at the child's rescue and becomes her only friend, later taking her on as a protege until they are both one and twenty. Then a place as a maid comes up at troubled Longbourn, where a distracted Mrs Bennet cannot cope and her girls fight and squabble.
How will the new maid get on, given her mix of Charlotte's cultured society and her own gypsy upbringing? And what of the strange birthmark on her arm? And why do the Bennet's feel a deep and unexplained love for the shrinking maid, who has never been in society?

A Pride & Prejudice variation that is sensitive to Jane Austen's work, is wholesome, features most of her beloved characters and aspires to fine writing.

Not well suited to virtual voice

I might have enjoyed this story better if I had read it, but as an audiobook with virtual voice as the narrator, it is often difficult to discern which character is speaking.

Regarding the story itself, it seems interesting, and the author writes in a way that is reminiscent of Jane Austen’s style, or even Shakespeare. The features in the story line that we, as p&p fans, recognize seem to be condensed and slightly different for no apparent reason. There a a few sundry consistent mistakes as well, such as Miss Bingley’s Christian name being Carolyn rather than Caroline.

I decided to stop listening to this book not even halfway through due to the inconsistencies and virtual voice narration. Normally, I don’t mind virtual voice, despite it being inferior to humans, but it is difficult to follow the story in the instance.

Overall, I do not recommend this audiobook, but maybe read the book yourself?