The Independence Of Miss Mary Bennet

Twenty years after Pride and Prejudice closes, the Bennet sisters have another remarkable story to tell. Mary Bennet, of the atrocious voice and staid bent of mind, has been weighed down with family obligations. Her sisters have made lives of their own: Jane is happily married, Elizabeth finds being a Darcy brings unwelcome social pre-eminence, Lydia's still entranced by soldiers, and Kitty's a star of London's fashionable salons. But Mary has had to wait for her moment to claim her liberty.

Once she is free, Mary resolves to publish a book about the plight of England's poor. Plunging from one predicament to another, she embarks upon a mission of investigation that eventually leads her into mortal danger. But having tasted independence, Mary resolves to keep it - and she will let nobody, whether family, suitor or enemy, take it away.

Warm, witty, tragic and eminently satisfying, The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet is a novel for every woman who has yearned to make her mark upon the world, from a master storyteller.