It is always a bit scary when you pick up a modern adaptation or twist of a well-loved novel. Pride and Prejudice has been a favourite novel of mine for many years, and though I was excited to read Hadlow's book, I was also a bit worried. Would it be inkeeping with the spirit of the original novel? Would the beloved characters remain just as beloved?
I needn't have worried. Hadlow gives us a new spin on the classic, going so far as to go beyond Elizabeth's happily ever after and answer the question 'What happens next?' Mary is an engaging heroine, who many will relate to at various stages of the novel. What I liked most was that we got to see how Mary became the way she is in Austen's novel, but also giving her scope for growth and improvement in the way the original novel does not. I found it so interesting to see the events taken from Austen's novel related to us with a fresh perspective. Sometimes, we even end up berating Elizabeth for not seeing Mary's insecurities and failing in being a sister to her in a way she never fails with Jane. Instead of a prudish bluestoking, Mary becomes a girl simply seeking a place where she feels loved and cherished in a way she doesn't with the Bennet's and eventually does with the Gardiner's. Mr Bennet in particular, no longer Lizzy's rose-coloured and loving gaze, falls short of our expectations, and we are severely disappointed that for all his intelligence, he doesn't understand Mary, or look after the way he does Lizzy. In this light it is even easier to see how Lydia was able to elope. My Collins, by contrast, becomes a far more sympathetic figure while Caroline Bingley is as bitter and sneering as ever.
With regards to the new characters, it is easy to see that Thomas Haywood is going to be Mary's main love interest. What we don't anticipate is for his rival, Ryder, to be just as charming and engaging as Haywood. It does Hadlow credit that for a few moments I was not sure who Mary would choose.
This was an engaging read, and it amazed me how Hadlow managed to give the marginalised characters in Austen such depth and room to grow. I thoroughly enjoyed how she made us challenge out perceptions of the characters, even Elizabeth. I would definitely reccommend this book to friends!

The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow resembles nothing as much as the curate's egg. The author has taken Pride and Prejudice and woven around it another story, that of Mary, the middle sister. So far, so nothing new. What is new, though, is the way in which Janice Hadlow retells the plot of Jane Austen's novel. She changes nothing, merely gives a different focus and concentrates on how the actions of others affect Mary. And that is fascinating and extremely well handled. The first part of Hadlow's novel is set, therefore, in the same time frame as Pride and Prejudice and that for me, someone who has read the original many times, was the problem. I know the story and didn't need reminded of it. Too much time, I felt, was given to that retelling and, I confess, I skimmed much of it, focusing only on Mary's inner life. But I see Janice Hadlow's dilemma: not all her readers will be familiar with Jane Austen's novel.

As the story progresses into a time which Austen did not recount, it became much more interesting and I very much enjoyed the adept way in which the author studied Mary's character as she told a story. The plot is in keeping with the style of Pride and Prejudice and features other characters from that novel, although mostly only in supporting roles. I thought the ending of the book was too drawn out and then too abrupt, and the conflict felt somewhat contrived. But I would recommend it for its fascinating character study and its consideration of the place of women in society.

Oh dear, I was really looking forward to this book, but it needed a really good edit. The first part was a rehash of Pride and Prejudice, that didn’t really add anything to the original. Perhaps it toyed with some contemporary feminist issues, but didn’t really explore them. Part two then moved forward two years and primarily explore the Collins couple. As a short story this would have been fine, but it sits oddly in the rest of the book. Part three then moved to another story again, and I think this is where the book should have begun. However, even this was entirely predictable. I ended up skimming at points and it became a badge of honour to finish. I do apologise, I don’t like to be mean, but this was not for me.

Thanks to Pan Mac and NetGalley for an early copy of The Other Bennet Sister.

This book was an absolute delight and exactly what I needed on a cold and rainy Monday. The book begins at the same point as Pride & Prejudice and roughly a third of the book covers the original story from Mary's point of view. From there onwards the story becomes truly its own and gives Mary the room to grow and develop as a character.

As others have said, the story is a little exaggerated but it does not lessen the enjoyment to be had with this book.

I especially enjoyed the numerous nods to other Austen novels and the weaving of similar characteristics, names and descriptions - a lovely addition to the reading experience.

Would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes Austen or just needs a good cosy read!

4/5

I loved the idea behind this book, as I hadn't read any other books from Mary's point of view. However, I was slightly disappointed. The Mary in this book didn't seem anything like Jane Austen's Mary, and some of the other characters (e.g. Miss Bingley) seemed exaggerated caricatures of their originals. That said, it was interesting to see another side to Mr Collins, and to see Lizzie as somewhat less than the ideal character portrayed in Pride and Prejudice. The book was also much too long, and the poetry business was unnecessarily boring. In summary, the book is an entertaining, rather romantic read, but won't please real Jane Austen fans.

The Other Bennet Sister is a very interesting look at one of the more overlooked characters in Pride and Prejudice -- the middle child, Mary Bennet.

What I really liked about The Other Bennet Sister was that Hadlow spends a lot of time really taking a good look at some of the minor characters and interactions. Mr Collins, Caroline Lucas, Miss Bingley and the ball at Netherfield are all examined and shown through another light or another point of view. She manages to create a much more three-dimensional and sympathetic figures out of characters more usually seen as unsympathetic or merely humorous. She presents a rationale behind actions of forgotten characters and shows more of the consequences of their decisions play out.

The early section of the book re-covers a lot of the ground from Pride and Prejudice itself, but we also get to see a lot of Mary's upbringing and how it affects her perception and interaction with those events.

Mary's the ugly duckling of the five sisters: the boring one, the smart one, the one that should have to take a far more practical approach to love and marriage. We get to see how this informs her relationships with the other Bennet girls, Charlotte, her mother and eventually with the various men that come into their lives. It's fascinating to see -- especially in Mary's conversations with other women -- how various factors affect the choices and opportunities and decisions women face in this society when they're not buffered by Lizzy and Jane's protagonist shields.

The Other Bennet Sister was both incredibly interesting and wonderfully charming. I kept picking it up when I had other things to do and staying up with it well past lights out time. I think it's perhaps a tad long--it could be nearer to 400 words than 500 without losing anything--but that's a very minor gripe about a wonderful story.

This is one of those ARCs that I enjoyed so much that I'll be picking up a finished copy for myself to reread at a later date.

Firstly I want to thank NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review an unproofed e_ARC.

I thought this was an excellent Pride and Prejudice continuation, one of the best I have read, The development of Mary's character really worked for me and it felt like an almost seamless progression from Austen's classic. I enjoyed the new characters and the new locations.I am hoping the much needed editing and proofreading doesn't alter the final offering too much. It would make a good movie. Highly recommended to P&P fans and one of my pretty rare five stars.

** 3.5 stars

This is not the first book I've read that spins off from pride and prejudice... I don't think it's even the first book I've read that makes Mary a central character.
There's something quite interesting about seeing a familiar scene from an unfamiliar view point,and comforting to have familiar names,places and characters.
This extends the original story well,it makes a fantastic main character out of the much forgotten middle sister.
It made me feel sympathetic to Mr Collins.
I Really enjoyed the use of familiar characters the whole way through,miss Bingley, The Gardeners and extending with new people.
I must admit it lost my interest slightly with all the poetry.
Besides that,I enjoyed it.

Publisher has requested that full reviews be held back until March 2020. I enjoyed it as far as it went but it didn’t entirely work for me. That said I am very picky about Austen continuations because they are about so much more than mere romance. If you like Austen for romance this will probably be far more your sort of thing than it was mine. (For me this just wasn’t Mary Bennett from P&P, character growth or no.)

Nearly twenty years ago, Philippa Gregory wrote her only readable novel, The Other Boleyn Girl. Despite its myriad inaccuracies, it was a runaway success. I myself enjoyed it for a few years until I grew up a bit and noticed that the core message is pretty poisonous. The obedient sister who likes babies gets a happy ending while the ambitious one gets her head chopped off. Moral: women, fling away your ambition! I digress. The bestseller's title clearly been co-opted for this latest Pride and Prejudice spin off starring (just for a change) Mary Bennet. However, it feels awkwardly placed here since in contrast to the Boleyn girls who were both beloved of Henry VIII, the Bennet girls have no rivalry so clear-cut. There is the pairing of Jane and Elizabeth, then the other pairing of Kitty and Lydia. Mary sits alone and ignored in the middle. Is this the book to make her finally stand out?

I have gone into detail elsewhere about the recent flood of Mary Bennet stories but The Other Bennet Sister is an unusual example. The author is Janice Hadlow, high profile former BBC executive and author of The Strangest Family, a biography of George III's family which I read and loved several years ago. Hadlow has enough of a background in the period to avoid the historical howlers which so many authors of spin-off fiction tend to tumble into so this is not the kind of book where Darcy will suddenly start throwing his first name around. It even has this arresting Austenesque opening line:

'It is a sad fact of life that if a young woman is unlucky enough to come into the world without expectations, she had better do all she can to ensure she is born beautiful. To be handsome and poor is misfortune enough; to be both plain and penniless is a hard fate indeed.'

The first half of the novel retraces the events of Pride and Prejudice from Mary's perspective with the second half picking up on events two years after the original book's ending. Hadlow's Mary learns from an early age that she is the ugly duckling among a family of swans. Her mother makes her all too aware of it. Believing that beauty to be the currency by which her daughters can buy themselves out of their insecure state, Mrs Bennet has no hope at all for Mary. The thesis of The Other Bennet Sister is that this leads Mary to a life filled with self-loathing which leads to her shrinking from others and instead embracing a life of reason. In a sad self-fulfilling prophecy, Mary isolates herself and feels isolated, her grief at being unloved making her in turn a difficult person to love.

Early in the book, Mary's bookishness causes her short-sightedness which in turn means that she needs spectacles and that draws her to the son of the spectacle-maker. At this point, I thought that Hadlow's interpretation of Mary was following Jennifer Paynter's The Forgotten Sister, with Mary being a class warrior marrying outside the setting to which she was born. This Mary is less adventurous however and when warned by Charlotte Lucas that he is not the right person to be seen dancing with, Mary rejects him. Filled with shame, she retreats away from emotion and into reason.

Having read four different Mary-centric spin-offs, it becomes only more obvious over time what a difficult character she is to make into a heroine. She spouts cant, cares nothing for other people and is allergic to fun. Every author has had to finesse the finer points of the original character's personality to make her in any way appealing. Hadlow gives Mary a wisdom about which I always felt that I had to suspend disbelief. She is the clear-eyed observer at the dinner table when Mr Collins visits. She sees what Mrs Bennet cannot accept; Elizabeth will never accept Mr Collins even to save her sisters from ruin. Mary cringes at the cruelty inflicted on Mr Collins at the table. Mary is willing to be the one to step into the brink.

Hadlow's insight into the Collins issue gives The Other Bennet Sister its most intriguing moments. The idea of Mary setting out to attract Mr Collins, that her display at the Netherfield Ball was intended to be alluring ... it is quite convincing. It is in some ways the mirror image of what Jo Baker imagined in Longbourn, when Mrs Hill feels guilty for having encouraged Mary to think about the possibility. Somehow we sense that there is a tug between the two characters. Hadlow's novel even suggests the possibility that they might have had the happier match.

In the second part of the novel, Mary visits the married couple at Longbourn and finds that although the house is in better repair than when Mrs Bennet was its mistress, the home is not happy. Mr Collins has recognised his wife's coldness. He is not twenty-two years old any longer. He knows how people see him. Hadlow conveys his anguish in a way that makes the reader feel genuine sympathy. That's sympathy. For Mr Collins. One of the greatest creeps in literature. Hadlow is one talented writer.

On the whole though, Hadlow's versions of Austen's characters have a harsher quality. Charlotte Lucas, despite being Lizzy's friend, feels free to unveil her ruthless side to Mary. Lizzy's latent attraction to Darcy leads her to treat her family poorly lest they shame her in front of him. Most extravagant of all, Hadlow paints a version of Miss Bingley that goes from catty to the borderline unhinged. She is extremely rude in company, vicious towards Mary and ultimately voluntarily compromises her virtue and reputation. It was a little ... overblown.

Hadlow's novel takes her across all the households from Pride and Prejudice. There are the Bingleys, blithely happy as ever but Jane too passive to defend her sister from Miss Bingley's barbed comments. We stop off at Pemberley but Mary is too much a memento of Elizabeth's low origins so that although Lizzy makes her sister welcome, the other two Darcys leave her feeling a fish out of water. Then Mary tries Longbourn but runs into other difficulties. Her last bolthole is the Gardiners and it is no spoiler to guess that they go out of their way to make their niece feel at home. If Lydia could be granted sanctuary there, of course room came be made for Mary.

This completist approach to analysing the fates of the cast of Pride and Prejudice meant that The Other Bennet Sister ended up at least a hundred pages too long. There was a phase around Mary's visit to Longbourn where I found the book genuinely compelling. Sadly, that feeling faded long before the end. Mary's ultimate suitors (she has more than one) were not the most memorable and the Austenesque homages were heavy-handed, in particular Miss Bingley's intercession. Lady Catherine she is not.

Despite all of this, I warmed to The Other Bennet Sister more than I have done to any other Mary Bennet story. Other than it being too long for a spin-off and that Hadlow said that Jane walked to Netherfield rather than riding (get it right!), my only real bone to pick was that Hadlow's interpretation of Pride and Prejudice was not the same as mine. I always saw Miss Bingley's bitchiness as locked in to her jealousy of Elizabeth. She had believed Mr Darcy was as good as her own and then suddenly his eye was caught by a country girl with nothing to show for herself except a petticoat six inches deep in mud. It upset everything that Miss Bingley thought she knew about the order of things.  I would have imagined Mary as utterly beneath her notice as a fly buzzing around a window. To Hadlow though, Miss Bingley is a super-villain. Neither of us is necessarily wrong.

What I liked about Hadlow's version is that she seemed to understand more that it would take more than a makeover to make Mary pleasant. When Mary asks Charlotte why Mr Collins preferred her over herself, Charlotte's response is frank. It is not that Charlotte tried harder to please him or even that Mary too much pride to abase herself. It is that Charlotte sought marriage because she disliked her situation, but by contrast she did not dislike herself. She tells Mary 'It is hard to persuade anyone, especially a man, that your regard is worth having if you have none for yourself'. This is such a well-put truth. Mary's self-loathing made her toxic to be around and it is this which needs to be addressed rather than the way she does her hair.

As spin-offs go, The Other Bennet Sister was enjoyable and even raised some queries about the original text. While Hadlow's Mary has an eloquence that seems unlikely, she does not venture excessively far from her original. One thing that did catch my attention however was the news that Hadlow has another upcoming novel centred around the love triangle between Harriet Countess of Bessborough, her lover Granville Leveson-Gower and Harriet's niece Harriet Cavendish. I first heard about that relationship when I was reading Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire and it always struck me as bizarre. With a writer like Hadlow, that sounds a story well worth reading.

I loved this novel.I had read Janice Hadlow's book about George the Third and his family and enjoyed it,so I was expecting good things and I wasn't disappointed.It tells the story of Mary Bennet beginning with the events in Pride and Prejudice and moving on to how the author imagines Mary's life continued.
Mary is the least attractive sister in the original novel,but in this book she becomes a much more rounded and interesting character..Many of the characters in Pride and Prejudice appear, but the author's take on them isn't always the same as Jane Austen's.However, the style and tone of the book is very similar in many ways and I would think would please Jane Austen enthusiasts.I felt genuinely sympathetic towards Mary,who is constantly criticised for not being pretty and for being studious and intellectual.
It's a long book with a lot of detail and the pace is quite slow,but it's worth taking time to enjoy the language and the plot development.
I am very grateful to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC in return for this review which reflects my own opinions.

A nice, gentle read full of both familiar and new characters. The tone and style of the book was spot on. The story was undemanding yet also held my interest. It was a pleasant change from the usual gory crime stuff I read.

The style of writing of this book is interesting
This book has an authentic feel to it.
This is not a book full of action but a story about self discovery
What a well written book. It is a very long novel and took me a while to read

I am a huge fan of Pride and Prejudice but must confess I have never given much thought to Mary and her experiences so when I saw this book available I jumped at the opportunity to experience one of my favourite stories from a new perspective.

The beginning of The Other Bennett sister is set in the same timeline as the events of Pride and Prejudice and offers Mary’s perspective of those events. I enjoyed learning more about how Mary’s character had developed through the effect of her mothers preference for her other, seemingly more attractive sisters and how this along side the desire to be admired in her fathers eyes shapes the character we meet in the original book.

It was hard to read as Mary grew to believe herself unlikable and plain and see her struggle as she tries to change others opinions and is thwarted.

The later parts of the book focus on how Mary develops following the death of Mr Bennett. I really enjoyed this continuation of the story and found myself really rooting for her. I am glad I read this book and would definitely recommend it to those looking to experience more of the world of Pride and Prejudice.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. It is due for release in January 2020.

When the book starts, the style of narration is so interesting. You can almost hear the author making observations about all the goings on in the Bennet household at the time of the Netherfield ball. It invites a really thoughtful examination of all the Bennets and their relationships to each other - particularly to Mary. What becomes very evident early on is that Mary has no real place in her family - she is either an annoyance or invisible and so we get to know a young lady who is lonely and sad with no real identity of her own. The reader sees Mary with all the members of her family with the message that she is always wrong given to her over and over again. I really felt sorry for her.

The story then moves forwards as Mary tries to find a long term arrangement for herself somewhere she fits in.... this results in a very similar set of experiences - dismissed, disregarded and unimportant. This goes on for a long time before a meeting with a new acquaintance seems to ignite a new interest in Mary which is the key to her discovering herself, her personality and her own interests. It's a real coming of age tale as she grows into herself and becomes more typical of the Bennet female!

The tone and style of the book is really good - it's got a really authentic feel. It's really really long! It's taken me a long time to read, despite holding my interest. Things don't really start changing for Mary until the second half of the book.

This isn't a story full of action and adventure... it's not a love story. It's a story about self knowledge, discovery and relationships with others. Elizabeth, Darcy, Bingley, Jane and Mrs Bennet feature but not significantly. The reader spends most of the time with Mary, the Gardiners and their acquaintances Mr Ryder and Mr Haywood. Miss Bingley features quite heavily and is delightfully obnoxious - which is just how I like her!

This is a really well written book. It has made me appreciate Mary a lot more as well as the prospects for a woman who is not a traditional beauty and has intellectual interests. I like this Mary and the reader is taken on a real journey with her.

It was interesting to get a different view point of the Bennet family. The story is so familiar and yet seen from another's view point thought provoking. However, it is overly long and slightly depressing. Good read for any book club as it will certainly have it’s lovers and haters. Great for a getting folks talking!

Beautifully and sensitively written, I did enjoy this view of the Bennet family from Mary’s perspective. Initially it was a pleasure to slip back into Longbourn, and I frequently forgot I was not reading Jane Austin. However, I did feel part one was overlong and I got impatient for the story to advance. Thankfully the story got more interesting as Mary gathered confidence and learned to accept love from the warmth of the Gardiner family, it was to be a life changing experience for her.
Fans of Jane Austin should not be disappointed.
Thank you to netgalley for an advance copy.

This book is extremely long - it took me 10 hours to read, compared to the 3 or 4 a normal length novel takes me. Parts one and two are largely composed of the melancholy reflections of Mary, (both before and after the marriages of Lydia, Jane and Elizabeth) who seems utterly miserable.

It was interesting to see the Bennet family from a different perspective, and I did enjoy seeing Mary growing up and working out how she wanted to live.

There are many typos and other errors, for example part two has both large and small sections randomly in italics. I won’t list all the other errors, as I’m assuming there will be a further proof read/edit before publication and these will be removed.

I disliked or disagreed with a couple of plot lines - that between Mary and Mr Collins, and the author’s interpretation of Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage certainly doesn’t agree with mine.

This book would be much more to my taste if the first two parts had been summarised in two or three chapters - in fact part one could have been summarised in a few paragraphs! Then, I might have had more patience and thus enjoyed parts three and four more, in spite of their lengthiness. However, if you enjoy lengthy books with vast amounts of introspection, then this may be the book for you.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

I absolutely loved reading this book. The storyline about the other sister was brilliant and I really felt sorry for her at times. Would recommend this book.

Janice Hadlow’s first novel is an entertaining read written in the tone of, and with the underlying philosophical interests of, its very much older sister, ‘Pride and Prejudice’. Poor Mary Bennet who, both in the novel and in its contemporary screen adaptations, is given very little attention, is centre stage in ‘The Other Bennet Sister’.
In many ways Hadlow develops Mary’s character very effectively. The reader can imagine why she suffers from such low self-esteem: very poor parenting, the odd one out in sibling attachments, the need to wear spectacles in an age where it is better for women to suffer than to announce any physical imperfections, and the list goes on. But as Longbourn’s wise housekeeper, Mrs Hill, tells Mary, she only thinks herself so low because she is forever comparing herself unfavourably with her very pretty sisters. For readers who are familiar with ‘Pride and Prejudice’ the first third of this novel drags a little. After all, we all know this story and it doesn’t take long for us to appreciate why Mary is depressed, harassed and lonely.
‘Two Years Later’ is when Mary’s new story begins. After feeling unwelcome in the long term at the Bingley, Darcy and Collins residences, and with the ever-present dark shadow of spinsterhood by her side, she decides to visit the Gardiners (the aunt and uncle who rescued Elizabeth Bennet in the original story) in London and slowly learns to grow in self-confidence and enjoy herself in their rambunctious family home. In short, this is a place where she is loved for herself, and she blossoms.
This would not be the expected Jane Austen spin-off without the ensuing struggle between suitable and unsuitable suitors, mistakes regretted, assumptions made and plenty of Regency detail: domestic settings, travel, commerce, culture and customs, all described most convincingly by historian Hadlow with a lightness of touch suitable for a comedy of manners.
By the end of the novel Mary has learnt to be brave. She recognises the importance of acting on feelings as well as on reason. We applaud her; we enjoy her happiness. And yet… Might this novel have had a more lasting effect than that akin to binging on a box of fine quality chocolates if the author had been a little braver too? What might have become of Mary if she had been exposed to Mary Wollstencraft’s writing as well as Wordsworth’s?
My thanks to NetGalley and Mantle, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.