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The Forgotten Sister

Mary Bennet's Pride and Prejudice

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The Forgotten Sister

By: Jennifer Paynter
Narrated by: Justine Eyre
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About this listen

"Nobody turned my head with compliments. Nobody asked me to dance." An elegant accompaniment to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Jennifer Paynter’s The Forgotten Sister plucks the neglected Mary from obscurity and reveals her hopes and fears. Mary Bennet spends much of her time apart from her family, closeted in her room reading or playing her music, studying hard for accomplishments. As her four sisters become absorbed in their own romantic dramas, Mary stands apart, believing herself "not pretty enough" to dance with. She watches while Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley - and Mr. Wickham - waltz into her sisters’ lives, judging all three gentlemen quite dispassionately (and as it turns out, accurately). But Mary may not be quite so clear-sighted when she finally falls in love herself. She will first have to overcome her own brand of "pride and prejudice."

©2012, 2014 Jennifer Paynter (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Romance
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I loved the narrator! She gets Mary’s unintended pompous tone exactly right, and although there are mispronunciations here and there (especially Burns’ Old Scots words) you can hardly mind it compared with many narrations, plus a lot of things are done very well indeed and the language used is pretty authentic, unlike a lot of these sequels.

The story is excellent, characterisation is lovely because we sort of grow up with Mary and see the sisters also developing into the characters in P&P, rather than being intact perfect mini-versions of Austen’s characters. I also really like that Peter speaks clear but not refined English, the accent for him is excellent. It’s exactly the respectable working class Hertfordshire accent so that’s exemplary.

I like how Mary is frightened of people and situations and we get to understand why she comes out with those little sermons! The author makes her sort of brave and tough in realistic ways such as being stoical on the voyage. In life that’s often the case- brave and confident people do t necessarily cope with major challenges better than those who are shy and awkward. It’s very true to life, in that nobody is a complete heroine or monster, except Wickham of course. The other thing is that the Peter character has qualities you rarely read about in a romantic protagonist but that are genuinely delightful, and you get glimpses of how Mary seems to him.

One of the best bits is how they meet; no fanciful rescue scenes or such, they just have an awkward conversation about music where she’s confused about whether to speak to Peter, and is gradually more aware of society’s hypocrisy without making any big scenes about it. It’s a realistic story with great charm and excellent portrayal of those squirming situations we all experience, and the contrasting feelings we have when someone inexplicably makes us feel happy.

The whole story is brilliant!

The most worthwhile P&P sequel of them all!

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Loved hearing about life from Mary’s point of view and that she was not as downtrodden as in Pride & Prejudice

Mary was magnificent

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A good P and P variation apart from an unlikely ending but oh why American English with poor narration in what is a truly English story

Good story terrible narration

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