longbourn

• Pride and Prejudice was only half the story •
If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them.
In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice,the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended. Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own. ~ Goodreads

As soon as I was able to forget this is supposed to be a back story to Pride and Prejudice and read it as it's own story I enjoyed the book. Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice and the Elizabeth Bennett from this book were completely unrecognizable. And the portrayal of Mr. Bennett was completely unkind.

Beyond that I like the story as a stand alone story. I enjoyed the character of Sarah. I wanted her to find the happiness that she remembered as a child.

rating: 4 stars