Jean Burnett

This is a real laugh and I loved it! At last the truth about the glamorous, light-hearted and very naughty indeed Miss Lydia Bennett is revealed, and a gloriously comic and gripping revelation it is too.

The main character makes for a wonderful and very charming anti-heroine who gets involved with Regency highwaymen, the Prince Regent, his wife, a doomed ex-Banker prisoner and a wide variety of dodgy noblemen - all in her search for a man to keep her in the manner she'd like to become accustomed to. Pemberley, Elizabeth and Darcy have never seemed so dull, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

How I hope naughty Miss Lydia's adventures and sheer joie de vivre don't end here, and we can read all about her further adventures very soon.… (altro)

'Marry in haste repent at leisure'

Thus Lydia describes the adage that fits her three years of marriage with Wickam after he perishes at Waterloo.
I really found it difficult to read this novel. Not because of anything the writer did, but because of my cherished vision of Austen novels. How can I blame an author for my disillusionment?
I felt that the novel certainly confirmed my opinion about the thin social veneer that Lydia Wickham entertains as a member of polite society and exposes even more the hedonistic romp that she is. Lydia has no trouble falling from one outré situation into another.
I felt that the novel diminished my idea of Elizabeth and that Darcy appeared as an elderly bigot, which upon reflection he might grow into but I'd rather hoped that Elizabeth would be a softening influence.
So I will give the book 3 stars even though I personally did not enjoy it.
3 stars because It is my problem that I found the treatment of the subject matter not to my liking. This is the problem when one's long loved literary denizons are exposed by new voices. It took me a long time to finish.
Fans of this genre will enjoy it more than I.

A NetGalley ARC… (altro)

After the death of Wickham, Lydia finds herself living on the benevolence of Darcy and Elizabeth. To escape, Lydia joins some friends in London where they stage gambling evenings to improve their purses. Several unfortunate events and liaisons lead her from London to Bath and back to Pemberley where Darcy confines her before putting her into service as a companion, once again in Bath leading to a continental trip and a new liaison with an old flame as well as a spy mission and more new adventures.
This book was fun in many ways--lighthearted and capturing Lydia joie de vivre--but I found the many subplots and various story arcs a bit tedious and without a strong resolution.… (altro)