Charlotte Collins is the dutiful wife of Hunsford's vicar. Although it may not be perfect, her marriage allows her security, and so she patiently tolerates Mr Collins' awkward lectures and cares for their young daughter.
But there's more to Charlotte than she'd have you think. Fiercely intelligent and pragmatic, Charlotte yearns for something beyond what she has settled for.
When she meets Mr Travis, a local farmer, Charlotte starts to feel a spark of something she has never felt before. Could it be desire? Could it even be love?
And will she listen to what her head is telling her or should she follow her heart?
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[Mr. Collins walks like a man who has never become comfortable with his height: his shoulders hunched, his neck thrust forward]***
(@PenguinUKBooks, 19 March 2020, 320 pages, ebook, #ARC from @PenguinUKBooks via # NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed)
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So, I didn't realise until I started to read this that the main character features in another best-selling book, Pride & Prejudice, Charlotte is a friend of Elizabeth Bennett. There's a lovely bit of intertextuality for you. I may have got more out of the book if I'd read Pride & Prejudice as I feel there is lot of assumption by the author that you'll have read the source material so some details are left out I could have benefited from. This wasn't a terrible book but it was a pretty straight-forward book about a genteel Regency marriage which isn't my sort of thing. I felt there was too much obsession with wealth and class which got dull after a while. Like I said, not a terrible read but not particularly great either.
