There have been numberless revisits, of course, to Pride & Prejudice but so many are sunny romances: this, like Jo Baker's 'Longbourn' takes a welcome critical look at that well-loved classic and at the characters within it. Focusing on Mary, the leftover Bennet who we love to mock, this redraws the whole family, including Jane and Lizzy, and also makes us ashamed of our complicity in sidelining Mary - however pious and dull, it's a terrible thing for a girl to feel unloved and unwanted in her own family. Hadlow doesn't overdo things so this never becomes a kind of Bennet misery-memoir, but it does offer a new perspective on well-known events.

The first third has too much P&P for my taste: Hadlow cut-and-pastes great swathes of the original which I found myself skimming - it's only after that point that this starts to take on a new life of its own. There are new instances of 'pride' and 'prejudice', of sense vs sensibility, and Mary comes into her own - even facing a dilemma lifted from 'Emma' with aplomb. I'd say that some of the character development is too fast and implausible: Mary goes from being repressed and lacking in self-respect to charmingly forthright and bold in the snap of a finger, for example.

All the same, this re-opens the original with one eye on our present (of course) and deals with issues of self-worth in a light way. It's worth pushing on through the repetitive first third, the interlude that takes us to 50% as then the book takes on a life of its own.

Pitch-perfect, this is the best continuation of a Jane Austen novel which I have read. The author has captured the tone and spirit of the original, and given new life to one of its most sidelined characters, Mary Bennet. Not only that, but she has also enhanced my understanding of one of the least likeable, William Collins.

I am glad that I read this book, having initially been wary because of bad experiences with other “Jane-lite” novels, which either repeated her plots in plodding prose, or twisted her characters into unlikely poses. Here I found nothing which jarred on my sensibilities, and found much to savour.

My only quibbles are that I thought the resolution the plot was unduly protracted and that Mrs Bennet was made to appear as rather more malign than the silly, narrow and undereducated woman Austen portrays.

Recommended. Very readable and most enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the digital review copy.