An intelligent prequel packed with enjoyable Austen references, hampered somewhat by underdeveloped characterization.
A Jane Austen pastiche involving a disgraced young lady, amateur theatricals, and matrimonial machinations.
Disliking her dull lessons, 16-year-old Susan Smithson is more pleased than saddened to be dismissed from school after allowing the music master to kiss her hand. As an orphan possessing a great deal of beauty but no fortune, Susan is dependent on the generosity of her uncle, George Collins, who’s redoubled his determination to make her “thoughtful, quiet and obedient.” At first, things go well: Susan manages to behave, meets some attractive gentlemen, and is given a new gown by a rich widow. The young woman even charms the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who’s now visiting London. But a further indiscretion with the rakish Mr. Oliver is the last straw, so Susan is sent to Hunsford to stay at the country parsonage of her tiresome uncle, the Rev. William Collins, and her Aunt Charlotte; at least her shy cousin and friend, Alicia, will be there. Lady Catherine is the clergyman’s patroness, and on returning to her country estate, she gives Susan further chances to ingratiate herself. Susan gets to know the local gentry and their set, including Frank Churchill (from Emma), the Johnson family, and their guest, the heiress Miss Richardson. After noticing that Alicia and young Henry Johnson share an attraction, Susan hits upon a scheme to bring them together: putting on a play. Using her skills at reading people and quietly manipulating them, she convinces Henry to hold amateur theatricals. Onstage and off, there’s much life-changing drama—including proposals, an elopement, and a death. Although its events take place sometime after Pride and Prejudice (and include some of that novel’s characters), McVeigh calls her debut a “Jane Austen Prequel” in that it tells the origin story of the title character in Austen’s unfinished work Lady Susan. By the time the latter novel opens, Lady Susan Vernon is a widow in her mid-30s, and although she’s beautiful and charming, she’s a cold, scheming, and shameless seductress. McVeigh introduces a much milder Susan, even if she is manipulative and self-involved. But it isn’t easy for readers to see how she’ll become the older version, as there’s little Austenian character development in these pages. Whatever Susan’s future, McVeigh portrays her as much the same person at the end of this novel as at its beginning—possibly because the young woman has no real obstacles to overcome or any foil to challenge her perceptions. This contrasts with how Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet is challenged to reconsider her judgments of Mr. Darcy, or how the timid Fanny Price must stand up for herself against Henry Crawford’s determined courtship in Mansfield Park. All Susan has to do is wait out her forced exile from London. Undeniably, though, McVeigh displays a brilliant, spot-on command of Austen’s diction and tone, as well as familiar phrases, as in the observation that “nothing is more fragile than a lady’s good name—for that, once lost, is lost forever.”
An intelligent prequel packed with enjoyable Austen references, hampered somewhat by underdeveloped characterization.Pub Date: June 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-916882-31-7
Page Count: 332
Publisher: Warleigh Hall Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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