The Unexpected Miss Bennet

De: Patrice Sarath

Narrado por: Kitty Kelly

Pride and Prejudice's Mary Bennet gets her own story....

The third of five daughters, Miss Mary Bennet is a rather unremarkable girl. With her countenance being somewhere between plain and pretty and in possession of no great accomplishments, few expect the third Bennet daughter to attract a respectable man. But although she is shy and would much prefer to keep her nose stuck in a book, Mary is uncertain she wants to meekly follow the path to spinsterhood set before her.

Determined that Mary should have a chance at happiness, the elder Bennet sisters concoct a plan. Lizzy invites Mary to visit at Pemberley, hoping to give her sister a place to grow and make new acquaintances. But it is only when Mary strikes out independently that she can attempt to become accomplished in her own right. And in a family renowned for its remarkable Misses, Mary Bennet may turn out to be the most wholly unexpected of them all....

©2011 Patrice Smith (P)2021 Tantor

Loved this supporting role character story

I really enjoy a well written story about one of the supporting cast members of Pride and Prejudice and I love a good Mary story. And this story WAS unexpected, for me, as I had not read the book yet.

Elizabeth Bennet-Darcy’s sister Mary is changing and some of her sisters notice. Thus she is invited to Pemberley and although she enjoys Georgiana’s company she finds the world there uncomfortably large and hard to live up to. She meets Anne de Bourgh on a visit to Rosings and Anne requests that Mary visit her for a while. However, Lady Catherine sees this as a way to revenge the Bennets for their daughter Elizabeth marrying her nephew. Mary is treated like a lowly servant. Definitely not a gentleman’s daughter. The Darcys see this even before they go and Elizabeth tries to talk her out of it.

Mary’s answer reveals another level of her change in character. This is sometimes engaging to listen to but often it’s really hard. Even after Lady C acknowledges that Anna has improved a lot since Mary came to her. She still treats Mary like she’s lower than even a servant.

An absolutely engaging individual has come into Mary’s life, who she meets early in the story and his appearance shows up more often when he finds her at Pemberley. He is Mary’s compete opposite though and no one can figure him out including Mary. What a great new character.

I tried not to spoil anything, there’s so much more to this very well written story and I highly recommend you listen to it. Definitely *****5 stars.

lacking attention to details

Not very Regency and full of contradictions. Seem to take several chapters to get into the story. Seemed like travel was nothing when Pemberley was far away from London and Kent. The Bennet's took Mary to London to meet the Gardiners to go to Pemberley? Wrong direction. They left for Pemberley after lunch?Gardiners delivered Mary and then where did they go? Never mentioned them again? Think Elizabeth would have talked to her Aunt about Mary. Elizabeth didn't make sure Mary had a dress appropriate for a ball? And what did Elizabeth do as mistress? Just sit in her parlor? Appreciate the plot idea but think this book needs more attention to details besides the many speeches the reader has to endure by Mr. Collins.

The best "sequel" to Pride and Prejudice I've foun

Sarath does a great job of giving us a "then what" for one of the best relationship stories out there, and I'm a P&P snob. The characters are on point (I'll quibble that Lady Darcy is a bit harsher than in Austen), the established characters don't go off the rails from reasonable expectation ... even Mary's arc is believable.

The narrator captures the characters without trying to sound exactly like the TV versions. Plus, I easily understood the accent, which is not always the case with British narrators.

I've read the written novel several times, and I expect to listen to the audio version more than once. It's a very nice "comfort read" for anyone who would like to visit old friends from Longbourn.