I love reading books about side characters. Charlotte has always seemed like a character with a promising story and this book finally gives her a place to shine. I was entirely enchanted and fascinated. Excellent work.

I chose this book having read another Pride and Prejudice continuation story fairly recently. (Note: prior to that I was totally against other authors taking up the mantle of popular deceased authors!)

However, this book was - for me - a disappointment on the whole. I found that the Ann de Bourgh story reminded me strongly of "Gentleman Jack", and was doubtful that a young lady of her station would be able to beetle around without a chaperone. Nor could I reconcile the behaviour of this version of Charlotte Collins with what we already know of her character.

So, whilst other reviewers obviously loved the book, this is a 2-star for me - it was OK but did not fill me with enthusiasm I'm afraid.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. All opinions my own.

I'm one of the many Jane Austen fans who particularly love Pride and Prejudice. So it is with excitement and nervousness I read Charlotte, I desperately want the world of Pride and Prejudice to live on but also I don't want to ruin my love for it. Don't worry this book will not disappoint.

We meet familiar characters and homes that we know well. We meet Charlotte Collin's after she has been married for many years. She has a family, is settled into the life of a cleryman's wife, eats frequently at Rosings Park. Yes we meet Lady Catherine de Bourgh and her daughter Anne, who I admit appears quite changed.

Both Jane Bingley and Elizabeth Darcy are in the book, including the rather outspoken Mrs Bennett. It was a pleasure to read, I felt like I was on safe ground back in Georgian, England. A joy to see many of the characters we know but through the eyes of Charlotte, thus seeing them in a new light. Charlotte continues to be a close friend to Elizabeth, though they now live many miles apart and in very different circumstances.

Go on, pick up the book and find yourself lost in the world of Jane Austen again thanks Helen Moffett's imagination.

The books does stand alone, you do not need to have read Pride and Prejudice. But why would you have not? For me there was just a single point in the story line when I thought no I don't believe that Charlotte Lucas would of done such a thing. That has prevented me from giving the book 4 stars.
3.5 out of 5 stars

This continuation story of Charlotte’s character in a full book was surprising, it was unexpected in terms of the story direction and wholly enjoyable overall. Charlotte is a character who has always had my attention every time I’ve read or watched Pride & Prejudice. I think we’ve all struggled to understand her decision over Mr Collins, at least initially. This book explored her as a person but also their relationship as a couple. However this book is all Charlotte as a women in all her facets.

The book joined Charlotte seven years into her marriage to Mr Collins with three children, but tragedy was around the corner. This book navigated Charlotte’s journey through life’s hurdles, difficulties and grief. How Charlotte got through her emotions, anger and desire sometimes made by eyebrows raise but it felt tangible and good storytelling.

The cast of characters in the background of this book were rich and familiar. Lizzy, Anne de Bourgh and Catherine de Bourgh brought some excellent reading and some surprising elements. I enjoyed the friendship and confidence between Anne and Charlotte and Charlotte had also won the respect of Anne’s mother.

“But what really has my admiration is that my mother considers this an excellent plan of action. This leads me to all but suspect witchcraft on your part, Mrs Collins. Did our gypsy friends weave a spell, perhaps?”

Some of Charlotte’s experiences were heart-aching and on the flip side, her passionate nature was surprising. I liked where the story ended up in terms of her passions and I will say no more.

I had both an ebook ARC and an advance audio copy. I listened mostly and read some by ebook. The narration was perfect for the book and really conveyed Charlotte as a character.

Thank you to Bonnier Books for the early review copies.

If you are a regular reader of my blog you will know that I love Jane Austen and books which are either modern re-tellings of her stories or which feature her characters. The eponymous Charlotte of this book is, of course, Charlotte Lucas from Pride & Prejudice, or Mrs Collins as she becomes. We follow what happens to Charlotte following her marriage to Elizabeth Bennet's cousin Mr Collins and on an extended visit to Pemberley with her daughters.

Helen Moffett has really captured the essence of the early 1800s time period so well and it did feel to me as though I was reading a book that could easily have been written by Jane Austen herself. The author ties in her storylines beautifully with the well known story of Pride & Prejudice. Those who are familiar with the book will happily recognise some scenes told through the eyes of other characters. I enjoyed how the author takes the story past the end of Pride & Prejudice and imagines what has happened not just for Charlotte and Elizabeth but for many of the other well loved characters too.

Mr Collins never really comes across as a very pleasant character in either the book or any of the subsequent film or tv adaptations but we see him here as a much less shallow person. Indeed, we see his emotional side and we see a man who is loved by his wife and family. And Charlotte, as we come to see, has a great capacity to love.

I thoroughly enjoyed Charlotte which was beautifully written and so compelling. I think that Jane Austen would have been approved of the woman her character becomes in this book.

Everybody thinks Charlotte Lucas has no prospects . She is twenty-seven, unmarried l, plain and seemingly without ambition. When she stuns the neighbourhood by accepting the proposal of the buffoonish clergyman, Mr. Collins, her best friend Lizzy is angry at her for undervaluing herself. Yet the decision is the only way Charlotte knows how to provide for her future, and marriage will propel her into a new world, of duty, marriage, children and grief and ultimately, illicit love and and kind of freedom. Jane Austen cared deeply about the constraints of women in Regency England. This powerful reimagining picks up where Austen left off, showing us a women determined to carve a place for herself in the world. Charlotte offers a fresh, feminist addition to the post-Austen canon, beautifully imagined, and brimming with passion and intelligence.

This novel is a wonderful addition to the world of Pride and Prejudice. We meet Charlotte Lucas (now Collins) when she is dealt a devastating blow at the death of her young son, Tom, and a lot of this novel deals with her grief. She also has to accept the wider implications that come with her son’s death; the inheritance of Longbourn, which will pass through her heirs, and what will become of her daughters now. Charlotte questions the constraints put upon women in this time. They must marry and have male heirs to secure their family and themselves. Just as Pride and Prejudice examines the unfairness of the entail which excludes the Bennet daughters from their father’s estates, so does this book.

Charlotte Lucas was much more pragmatic than other characters in Austen’s original, she married Mr. Collins because she knew it would secure her future, and take the burden off her father and brothers, and we see a little of her point of view in what happened, as chapters flashback to the events in Pride and Prejudice. In present day she is a sensible woman, who has taken control as mistress of Hunsford, and we are treated to some lovely little ways in which she runs her house and gardens.

We also meet characters Austen created in Lady Catherine de Bourgh, her daughter Anne, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, who is dealing with her own grief. The character the most removed from how we meet her in Austen’s novel, is the sickly Anne de Bourgh, who is shown to be much stronger and wittier than in Pride and Prejudice. She is shown as the opposite to Charlotte, her mother has already secured her inheritance of the Rosings estate, and yet her illness prevents heirs. So again the question remains what will happen to the estate after Anne’s death. I really enjoyed Anne’s character; she was a lot more independent and clever than Austen shows her to be. Some of my favourite sections were the conversations between Anne and Charlotte.

At Pembroke, Charlotte meets Herr Rosenstein, a musician employed by the Darcys who becomes more to her as time progresses. I enjoyed his character and their relationship as it developed into a love and mutual longing, I just found the final outcome a little jarring and unnecessary, and a little too much out of character of this pragmatic and sensible woman.

The writing and language in this novel fits very well with the world created in Pride and Prejudice, and fans of the original will surely enjoy Charlotte.

Thank you to the author, Bonnier Zaffre and NetGalley for this ARC to read and review.

The Charlotte of this novel is the fictional Charlotte Lucas from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. In that novel she is best friend of Lizzie Bennet although older and in her late twenties. She is unmarried and lives in her parent’s household in Meryton where money is apparently tight. She has no dowry and little hope of marriage. Little hope until the Reverend Mr Collins, a member of the Bennet family and the heir to their estate under entail, comes to seek a wife. Directed away from the oldest Bennet daughter Jane and firmly refused by Lizzie (the second) he rapidly proposes to Charlotte Lucas. They are married shortly after. The next spring Lizzie will visit them both in their parsonage at Rosings. In the original Austen we are told a certain amount about Charlotte, but in her inimitable style even more is hinted at. Moffett has bravely (unwisely?) taken up the challenge to present her in this novel as the key character.
The story as she presents it is largely eight years on from the main tale in Pride and Prejudice. Charlotte’s third and youngest child – a disabled son - has died suddenly and she is suffering from an explosion of grief. It will apparently cause a complete review of her attitude towards her husband; her previous lack of sympathy with his quirks of characters are now apparently to be seen in a more positive light. She will start to love him more deeply. Bizarrely too she is finding Lady de Burgh more sympathetic too at Rosings. She has started to develop a friendship with Anne de Burgh whose behaviour is far away from that expected from a lady, let alone one so seemingly meek. In the summer Charlotte will be invited to stay with Lizzie (still childless) at Pemberley. She will come into contact with a travelled Austrian musician and piano tuner and will be completely smitten. But she will return to her old life at the parsonage, with Anne de Burgh now a sponsor of her family.
But as this “current” story is developed there will also be flashbacks to the story of Charlotte herself and Mr Collins, Lizzie, her family and others as depicted in Pride and Prejudice. Some are blatant and clunky plagiarising of that text; others are slightly wider new interpretations of the characters. Moffett will also to resolve her book carrying characters forward decades to depict an elderly Charlotte and her growing family.
Whether you will like this book will, I suspect, depend on whether you are an admirer of Austen herself. Whether, too, you are aware of the background to her novels and the social, literary and historical complexities they display – in addition to the extraordinary presentation of the complexities and financial difficulties for so many young women of the period. To put oneself on the same book shelf as Austen herself displays a level of confidence by Moffett that is unfortunately not justified. Given the parameters of a story and characters to operate within she seems to have tweaked the characters to unlikely lengths. The people themselves seem facile and unlikely in their actions. But behind that seems to be a lack of awareness of simple historical and social matters of the period and she fails to grasp the complexities of history, social mores and characters that Austen herself quietly referred to. This in spite of a slew of books that consider them from the extensive Austen “industry”
Overall this novel comes a very poor second to Pride and Prejudice. The unlikely characterisation and weak new plot line instead of improving this merely draws attention to the inadequacies. Even if one were unaware of Pride and Prejudice itself and approached it as a “new” story, it must be said t bears all the hallmarks of “romantic” trash trying to masquerade as historic fiction. Sorry, not a very attractive read.

It was quite an accomplished P&P retelling following the events of it. Charlotte was a really fun character to follow. I think the author developed her quite well.

I'd recommend if you're a fan of P&P.

Thanks a lot to the publisher and NG for this copy.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bonnier Books for this advanced reader's copy in return for my honest review. Pride and Prejudice was always going to be a hard act to follow but I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Pride and Prejudice is such an iconic and important literary work that it sometimes feels books about the era in which it's set or are sequels are over done.
This is not the case with Helen Moffett's Charlotte. Charlotte is a refreshing, fun and interesting take on the life of Charlotte Lucas Elizabeth Bennet's best friend. If you are fan of the era and Pride and Prejudice then this a novel to add to your reading list.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this. I struggled to get into this one a bit which I was quite sad about. I loved the character of Charlotte but found the things happening to her and around her either just too sad or not exciting enough to spur me on. I wish the author the very best for the launch.

In any sense Pride and Pred is a hard act to follow but this is one that I enjoyed to a large degree. Well written and in a way appropriate to the original early 19th century book - tone of voice, sentence and composition. It takes up the story of Charlotte Lucas after she had married Mr Collins and had been living in the Hunsford Parsonage for some years - 2 daughters and a son later. Their son Tom sadly dies at the age of 3-4 and Charlotte, with her two daughters, is invited to Pemberley to help come to terms with her grief. Elizabeth Darcy (nee Bennett) has remained a friend despite their differences of opinion, shall we say, about Mr Collins. Lizzie has her own tragedies having miscarried several times and the two women grieve together over a month or so. Interwoven with this story is one about Anne de Bourgh, Lady Catherine's daughter and heir, who turns out nothing like the sad, wan downtrodden girl of Pride and Pred. I rather like the way that she kicked over the maternal traces to become definitely her own woman! Charlotte, lacking the finances to echo Anne, nonetheless, weaves her own thread to power; she comes over as a determined woman and rather manipulative at times but in an honest and pleasant way - poor Mr Collins really never knew whom he had married! Two things dropped a star for me. One, the looking back to past episodes in Charlotte's life was just too much BBC version for me and the final details of what we, well I, had thought about her un-requited passion for Jakob when she's remembering back 20 or so years. No 'un-' about it and, somehow, that just felt wrong for her character. The end at the time, the embrace and returning home with husband, who had joined them at one stage, and daughters, felt much more in character. Thanks to NetGalley and Bonnier Books UK, Manilla Press for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

As a die-hard Pride and Prejudice (and Jane Austen in general) fan, having adored the story and characters since I was a child, I have long resisted any sequel or fan-fic by modern writers that involves reimagining this beloved story in any way. It felt like dangerous territory to me, best left alone.

However, after reading Charlotte, I'm beginning to think I've missed a trick. This book very convincingly reimagines that beloved world and characters, through the perspective of a minor character. And it really works.

Charlotte gives us, as the title suggests, the untold story of Charlotte Lucas and her marriage to Mr Collins. I have always been fascinated by the character of Charlotte, whom many feminist scholars have held up over the years as a character that represents the reality that faced the majority of women, including Jane Austen herself, during that period. As appalled as Charlotte's best friend Elizabeth Bennet is at her decision to marry Mr Collins, a man Lizzy herself has rejected as repulsive, Charlotte's choice is entirely understandable. Whether she loved Mr Collins or even liked him was rather immaterial - for a 'plain' woman, marriage was her ticket out of spinsterhood, being a burden to her family (particularly her brothers who would be honour-bound to support her after the death of their father) and having an insecure future. Love was for those who could afford it.

Charlotte ends up having a very fulfilling life as mistress of her own domain, Hunsford Parsonage, and she and Mr Collins, while still over-effusive and odd, do become a good team, in marriage, life and parenthood. The details of her housekeeping and the fruits (and other products) of the estate are so interesting and enjoyable to read. And there are flashbacks to the scenes we all remember from the original told from Charlotte's perspective (and I appreciated the author's note as to why she reimagined some scenes in a certain way), so this tale is very much anchored in that universe and convincingly so. I particularly enjoyed the reappearance of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and the evolution of Anne de Bourgh's story, another minor character from the original who is brought to life and given a lot more to do in this story. It was also highly amusing to hear the fate of Lydia Bennet/Wickham!

This book was 5 stars until almost the end. On a month or so long visit to her friend Mrs Darcy at Pemberley, Charlotte becomes acquainted with Jacob Rosenstein, an instrument repairer and talented musician from Austria, hired by the Darcys to fix their very expensive pianoforte. They spend a lot of time together, and Jacob becomes very much a part of the Darcy family for the duration of Charlotte and her daughters' visit. For most of the book, it appears that this spark between Charlotte and Jacob, while felt strongly by both, culminated in an intense embrace towards the end of the visit but nothing more. So I presumed. And, to be honest, I would have preferred that. I felt it would have been more realistic, and more true to Charlotte's character, had the connection never gone any further than some intense moments of unexpressed longing, and the meaningful embrace. There is something in choosing not to take a spark or connection further, to preserve the preciousness of what you already share with the other person. I realise those moments are not always what great novels are made of....but perhaps they should be.

So I was disappointed that it is eventually revealed that Charlotte and Jacob did indeed succumb to temptation - and the sex scene is quite jarring to read. It felt very out of place with everything that had gone before - but perhaps that was the intention, to reveal a lustier, more human side to Charlotte, the dutiful clergyman's wife and doting mother (it should be noted that for all of the book she is grieving the loss of her youngest child who dies as a toddler, so perhaps this strange act is mean to be reflective of that, I'm not sure). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for an erotic scene - this just really didn't work for me, given everything else that I'd read and enjoyed up to that point.

The above is the only reason that Charlotte gets 4 stars from me and not 5 - otherwise, it is a wonderful, enthralling read that I would highly recommend to anyone who loves Pride and Prejudice but, like me, feared that reading a reimagined version of it might ruin the original. Far from it. For these strange times, stepping into a beloved familiar story again is a great deal of fun and much-needed escapism.

With many thanks to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

Charlotte by Helen Moffett
Based on characters that appeared in Pride and prejudice by Jane Austen this is an entertaining look at what could have happened later to well loved characters .It is a bold and female take on Charlotte, who married Mr Collins, the boring and self opinionated vicar who is the heir to the Bennett family home, as women could not inherit unless there was absolutely no one else left. So what happens to charlotte? She becomes a mother and confidant to Anne de bourgh the heirless to Rosings. Very cleverly the story tells Pride and prejudice from Charlotte’s viewpoint but also moves on to a beautiful summer Charlotte and her daughters spend with Elizabeth now Darcy at Pemberley, the Darcy country estate. It becomes a magical time for them all with a German music teacher fuelling a passion that Charlotte didn’t know she contained.
Is it realistic or a modern take on how women might have behaved when money is not vital issue for them? It is up to you to decide but it was lovely to meet old friends again from a much loved novel.

Thank you to Manilla Press and NetGalley for an early copy of Charlotte.

This book was a true delight from start to finish. Pride and Prejudice (and beyond) but from the perspective of Charlotte Lucas/Collins - Moffett has given a new life to an underrated character and it was a real treat to get to explore this story again but from a different point of view with quite a different "happily ever after" for our canon main characters.

Having read, and enjoyed, The Other Bennet Sister (Pride and Prejudice from Mary Bennet's point of view) it really highlighted how good - and far more realistic feeling - Charlotte was in contrast. Charlotte felt far more authentic and is a book I would happily read again and recommend to any P&P fan.

3.5/5

I am a great fan of Pride ad Prejudice reworkings or 'sequels'. This story based on Charlotte Lucas's decision to marry Mr Collins is excellent. I enjoyed the way the story kept pretty close to the original and also the Austen references and text hidden within the pages. It's a moving story of the decisions a woman without looks or dowry had to make in late Georgian society if she didn't want to remain as a spinster looking after her parents. Well written. interesting and a great addition to the P&P fanfic genre. Wiyth thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review an e-ARC of this book.

There is a whole genre of ‘sequels’ that continue the ‘Pride & Prejudice’ story. Some are chiefly an excuse to continue swooning over Mr Darcy. Others – ‘Death Comes to Pemberley’ and ‘What Kitty Did Next’ deserve credit for imaginatively taking the story and characters down new avenues, while retaining a strong sense of the original.

I’m pleased to say that ‘Charlotte’ falls into the latter category. It takes us behind the closed doors of Hunsford parsonage to show us Charlotte Lucas’s marriage to Mr Collins. What I really liked was the way the author presents Charlotte’s decision, which appals her close friend Lizzie, as a completely justifiable choice.

Few options were open at the time to a woman who, unlike Lizzie, is neither attractive nor in the first flush of youth. Lizzie comes over as less understanding and sympathetic than she should have been; almost callous in the circumstances. Austen herself had to rely on hand-outs from her brothers and the author makes it clear that this would have been Charlotte’s fate. The Lucas boys’ relief is loud and clear.

Instead, Charlotte lives a fulfilling life, both domestically and as a vicar’s wife ministering to the needy. I loved the little details of preserving and bottling produce from the kitchen garden and was almost as enthralled as Charlotte when she explores her new home, of which she is now the mistress, for the first time.

In addition, in the retrospectives as Charlotte looks back on her life, we gain fresh insights into the stand-out scenes of the original. We learn, too, that away from rank and wealth, Mr Collins is not the ridiculous figure of ‘Pride & Prejudice’, Miss de Bourgh is not the washed-out, ground-down shadow we thought her, and what happens to the Bennet family when Mr Collins inherits Longbourn.

For me, a less ambitious plot would have sufficed. Instead, Charlotte has her own moment in the sun through a love affair with Jacob, an itinerant musician and instrument repairer. I wasn’t too keen on the sex scene – I thought at first we had escaped this – which felt out of character, and that is the only reason why I give this 4 stars instead of 5 stars. Otherwise it was a fantastic read, which I’m sure I’ll revisit, and one that I heartily recommend to anyone who can't get enough of the 'Austenverse'..

This might be the 53rd book I've read that's based on pride and prejudice. Its one of the better ones.
To be back with familiar characters ,and familiar names such as Longbourn and Pemberley is always a pleasure.
This fleshed out the characters of Charlotte Lucas and Mr Collins perfectly.
It also gives a nice continuation on the story of the Darcys.
There were moments I felt the musician was only being used as a prop for a retelling of Charlotte's back story,but he was never a bad prop.

I don't mind admitting there was a tiny lump in my throat as the book drew into it's final chapters and we saw where life had led everyone.
So very nicely done.