Susan: A Jane Austen Prequel by Alice McVeigh – Excerpt

Today I’m welcoming a new visitor to the blog. Alice McVeigh has written a book based on Lady Susan, Susan: A Jane Austen Prequel, which came out this week. I’ve only read Lady Susan, which forms part of Austen’s juvenilia, once, but it’s really something, and I am excited to see a book based on this character, particularly as according to the blurb, it's the first book of a series. Let’s look at the blurb and then I’ll share an excerpt. 

Book Description

Susan is a Jane Austen Prequel (or Pride and Prejudice Variation) brilliantly capturing Austen's own Lady Susan as a young girl.

 

As the BookLife review put it for Publishers Weekly: "McVeigh's prose and plotting are pitch-perfect. Emma mingles with Pride and Prejudice in a delightful confrontation between the two books' worlds... This Austen-inspired novel echoes the master herself."

 

Familiar characters abound - Frank Churchill, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Darcy himself - but Susan - mischievous and manipulative - is the star. This is Austen that even Austen might have loved, with a touch of Georgette Heyer in the romantic sections. Fans of Bridgerton will also relish this classic regency romance, the first in a six-book series.

 

Sixteen-year-old Susan Smithson - pretty but poor, clever but capricious - has just been expelled from a school for young ladies in London.

 

At the mansion of the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, she attracts a raffish young nobleman. But, at the first hint of scandal, her guardian dispatches her to her uncle Collins' rectory in Kent, where her sensible cousin Alicia lives and "where nothing ever happens."

 

Here Susan mischievously inspires the local squire to put on a play, with consequences no one could possibly have foreseen. What with the unexpected arrival of Frank Churchill, Alicia's falling in love and a tumultuous elopement, rural Kent will surely never seem safe again...

Lady Susan Book and Love and Friendship Film - My Review

Lady Susan

I was unaware for years of this early work of Jane Austen’s, only hearing of its existence a few years ago. I was prompted to read it by a recent film adaptation, ‘Love and Friendship’. I always like to read the book before watching the film if possible so that I know the real story.