Jane Rubino

Borrowing the framework of Jane Austen’s unfinished work Lady Susan, this novel tells the story of Susan Vernon and her daughter Frederica. When Susan’s husband Frederick dies unexpectedly, his brother Charles inherits both his estate and his entire fortune. Charles is a grasping and selfish man, so although honor demands that he provide for Susan and her daughter, Charles refuses to do so. Susan and Frederica are therefore left virtually penniless, and soon their entire social circle is show more speculating about what Lady Vernon and her daughter will do next. Marriage is the subject that mainly occupies everyone’s minds, but both Susan and Frederica are determined not to marry men they do not love.

I have a weakness for Austen-themed fiction, but most of it doesn’t tend to be very good. So I was pleasantly surprised by this book; while the style is certainly not identical to Austen’s, it does have an authentic period feel. I don’t think I’ve ever read Austen’s Lady Susan – or if I did, it was years ago – so I wasn’t bothered by any deviations from the source material. I have the impression that Austen’s Lady Susan was much more cold and manipulative than the Susan Vernon in this book. However, since Susan is meant to be one of the heroines here, I can’t really blame the authors for the change! The romances in the book are satisfying enough, though they’re not given much depth. Rather, the novel’s focus seems to be on immersing its readers in an Austen-esque world, and on that basis I really enjoyed it. I’d recommend this to fans of Austen or 19th-century literature in general. show less

Many of Jane Austen first drafts were heavily revised by the author before becoming the novels we know and love today. So First Impressions became Pride and Prejudice and Elinor and Marianne became Sense and Sensibility. For whatever reason, however, Lady Susan remained a manuscript that was never fully polished. In Lady Vernon and Her Daughter, mother and daughter team Jane Rubino and Caitlen Rubino-Bradway imagine what could have happened if Jane Austen had revised Lady Susan, updating it show more from an epistolary novella to a full-length narrative novel.

I’ll admit that I struggled a bit with the beginning of this book. The first few chapters were hard to follow with all the characters and places (i.e., Ealing Park, Vernon Castle, Churchill Manor, etc.) being introduced in what seemed like rapid-fire pace. There is a family tree at the beginning of printed book (and available through Amazon's preview the book function for audiobook listeners) that does help with this though. It also took some getting used to that the deliciously wicked Lady Susan is now the honest, clear-thinking Lady Vernon because part of the charm of reading Lady Susan was that she was not the "good girl" heroine. (Although Charles Vernon is so scheming and wicked in this version that you feel delighted whenever he is foiled in the slightest bit.)

However, once getting into the book, I was sucked in and immediately compelled to like the characters and care about what would happen to them next. It does feel very much as though Jane Austen could have written a novel like this one. Especially after I had the opportunity of meeting the authors and hearing them describe how painstakingly they researched Jane Austen's works to make sure that every word they used was acceptable and similar to Austen's prose, I realized just how much like Jane Austen this particular book is, particularly when compared to the myriads of less-than-stellar and outright bad fan fiction out there. The first line, for example, is wonderfully Austenesque – “A woman with neither property nor fortune must ward off this affliction by cultivating the beauty, brilliance, and accomplishment that will blind a promising suitor to the want of a dowry.”

In addition, while perhaps not to the full force of an Austen novel, there was a fair share of Jane Austen’s wit. Furthermore, the characterizations, especially of the minor characters, seem so delightfully Austen - like the ridiculous and gossipy Mrs. Johnson, the flirtatious and avaricious Mr. Manwaring, the scheming and greedy Charles Vernon, the insipid and vain Catherine Vernon, and so on. There are also lines pulled directly from the original novella and inserted here, which often makes them all the more clever or poignant.

There are also some delightful “Easter eggs” in here for Austen fans – for instance, Mrs. Smith from Persuasion is a minor character here as well and other minor references to Persuasion with Miss Elliot at school and a potential visit to Kellynch Hall alluded to at one point.

There are some minor differences here from an Austen novel. One was that there felt to be greater emphasis here (as opposed to Lady Susan) on how hard it was to be a gentlewoman in a time period when a woman's primary option to support herself was to marry well ... and how even marrying well could not be a constant source of comfort as there is always the prospect of a woman outliving her husband without having a male heir and thus being thrust out on the world again without a home, finances, or the hope of marrying well again if she is past her “bloom” as well as now being saddled with the addition of child(ren) to support. Also, interestingly, there is more here on the “inner workings” of the household - not that you ever see from their perspective, but you do see and hear more about housekeepers, cooks, etc than in any Austen novel I can recall. And there seemed to be even more on the machinations of everyone - so and so wishes for the trip to London to keep person A away from person B while person B wants the trip to keep person A nearer to person C and so on. Everyone has their own little plan and if only they would just lay out what they wanted, maybe much grief could be spared! But there would be far less amusement for the reader that way....

The book ends with a brief authors' note about how they got from Lady Susan to Lady Vernon and the inclusion of the first quarter of the letters from Jane Austen’s original Lady Susan. These are great add-ons to have, although I wish they could include all of Lady Susan, although the text of that work can be easily found on Project Gutenberg for any who want to read more.

For the audio book lover, I was a bit wary of the audio book narrator at first, finding her a bit too placid for my taste, but she grew on me – especially with the voices for various minor characters – and I quickly came to appreciate her narration and wish for no other reader.

To sum up, Lady Vernon and Her Daughter is not quite Jane Austen but is much closer than any other Austen-derived work I've read. In fact, like the best works (including those of Austen), this book strikes me as more than worthy of a re-read at some future date. show less

A mother/daughter writing team have taken Jane Austen's epistolary novella, Lady Susan, filled in a back story, and turned it into a novel worthy of Jane Austen herself. It's not like some Austen-inspired fiction, where Austen's beloved characters speak and behave according to 21st century standards. I didn't notice any anachronisms in the story. The authors do engage in a bit of name-dropping. Sir Walter Elliot's family is mentioned a couple of times, including his middle daughter. Mrs. show more Ferrars also gets a shout-out. Although I have a print copy, I ended up listening to the audio download from the public library. The narrator is outstanding. The only thing missing from the audio version is the genealogical table at the front of the book. My only quibble with the story is that it changes Susan Vernon's character from one that readers love to hate to one that readers will root for. Highly recommended for fans of regency novels. show less

One of the most appealing things about this book is that it portrays the power of the written word. A good portion of it is dedicated to letters sent back and forth between characters — an Austenian take on social networking before the advent of Twitter, Facebook, texting, cell phones, and e-mail.

The novel follows the adventures of Lady Vernon and her daughter, Frederica, after the death of Sir Frederick, which leaves them financially dependent on his spendthrift brother, Charles Vernon. show more The result is a lively romp through Regency England, replete with charming young men, rascally cousins, and plenty of gossip. It’s a fluffy spin-off of a Jane Austen novella, and more true to Austen’s ideology of women and society than other recent attempts at adapting her works for a modern audience. show less