Longbourn

by Jo Baker

[Sarah Says]

I loved the line “If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them”.
I loved Mrs Hill, Sarah and Polly and Felt for them. The twist concerning James’s parentage did not sit right with me and just felt wrong. However, ignoring that I was able to enjoy the story and Bar Mr Bennet, I was happy with Bakers take on the characters and they felt Austen approvable to me.
I really enjoyed reading the servants take on the Bennetts and their dramas. I found it interesting, I had never really thought about who washed and cooked and the entire goings on in the background of Pride and Prejudice as I was always too caught up with Mr Darcy.
The love story: Sarah an orphan taken and raised my Mrs Hill as a housemaid at Longbourn and who gets worked ragged and ends up understandably fed up with her life. James comes along and gets himself a job as footmen and that is when things start to get interesting. Like I said before if you ignore the premises of James parentage his back-story as a on the run disgraced solder is fascinating.
Even though Sarah and James end up together and happy, I felt like the ending was not good enough. All the characters get happy-ish endings; I just felt that James and Sarah deserved more. I mean hell if you are going to go all out and say Mr Bennett had a Love child with his housekeeper Mrs Hill at least have him come clean about it in the end, as then James not Mr Collins would inherit the Longbourn estate and Sarah and James could live happily ever after, safe and sound!