Charlotte by Helen Moffett

Anyone who knows me will have a pretty good idea that Regency-era novels are possibly not quite on my radar, but I'm a firm believer of reading widely and reading outside of my chosen genres, so here goes. Charlotte by Helen Moffett is the sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice you didn't know you needed to read. But truth be told, I'd heard so much about darling Charlotte that I went and read Pride and Prejudice so that I'd be suitably prepared with all the back story in place.

I'll start by saying that P&P is an important book to read, and a clever one, because it sneakily delivers biting social critique for its time, and in that sense exists as a capsule reminding us how far we've come in terms of women's rights. Moffett takes up where Austen has left off, and instead of doing the expected, rather continues the story from the point of view of Charlotte Lucas, who is so easy to overlook otherwise yet who nevertheless also has a compelling story. While Mr Collins is the opinionated, somewhat buffoonish, brown-nosed idiot I absolutely loathed in P&P, Moffett does the last thing I expected – she redeems him.

The underlying theme of Charlotte is clear: it's about women not meekly accepting the conventions and expectations laid down by society, but bit by bit finding ways to subvert them and overcome them. This may be seen in how Charlotte deftly handles a matter of inheritance or how an absolutely delightful secondary character goes haring off on a most unsuitable adventure for gently bred women. Even if Moffett does, I feel, take a few more liberties with characters' actions than I think Austen would back in the day, the end result is still plausible and satisfying.

Not only has Moffett continue the storyline with her own, signature twist, but she's also preserved Austen's style of writing, which in itself is no mean feat. And while Moffett's own particular brand of poetry creeps out in key scenes this is in no way jarring. Moffett takes this opportunity to display her rare talent for evocative imagery that had me feel as though I were walking right there on the grounds of Pemberley.

I won't spoil anything further, but I'll urge anyone who's ever loved Pride and Prejudice to go and track down a copy of Charlotte. Moffett has certainly left enough tantalising breadcrumbs that may lead to further stories to follow on from this one.

Charlotte was exactly the comfort reading I needed to read the moment I tucked into it, and I savoured every page.