Pride and Prejudice meets Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell, with added witches, in Melinda Taub’s The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch, coming in October 2023 from Jo Fletcher Books. In this re-envisioning of Jane Austen’s beloved novel, we see the events of Pride and Prejudice – and more – through the eyes of the youngest Bennet sister, whose magical abilities offer intriguing new explanations for familiar events. But as Lydia’s story unfolds, the truth of her high spirits, troublesome behaviour and relationship with the devilish Wickham proves to be unexpectedly dark, and her story filled with wild magic and terrible dangers (not all of which are her own fault).
Parodies and mashups of classics long out of copyright are ten a penny, but this wickedly funny take on a familiar character stands out in large part due to Taub’s engaging prose and clear love of the source material. This is clearly a fond, playful riff on what’s gone before, referencing various Austen stories and having fun with classic witchy/fantasy tropes, but it’s far from just a straightforward retelling. It does cover (at least some of) the events of Pride and Prejudice, but it goes way beyond that to become its own story, starting with Lydia’s childhood and the unconscious magic she first performs, and taking events to Brighton and beyond in a tale of ancient powers and magical consequences. The magic that Lydia – and others, who shall remain unnamed for the sake of spoilers – perform is wonderfully English, and fits perfectly into the Regency setting, drawing heavily from the natural world with undertones of dangerous magical beings (mostly) just out of sight.
The first person narration (with a few letters thrown in too) works beautifully, imbuing Lydia with an honest, compelling voice that’s equal parts sharp and self-deprecating – perhaps calculatingly so (who is she actually addressing with this book?), but engaging nonetheless. Taub portrays Lydia as capable, thoughtful, a little naive, occasionally devious, and far from the flighty, wild and wicked creature that she’s well aware people consider her to be. She’s certainly not the straight-laced young woman her parents might wish her to be – she’s far too strong-willed for that – but the exact nature of her ‘wrongs’ becomes an important part of the story. Imagine the stubbornness of Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching, just without the strong moral compass and with a rather different family (and magical companion), and you’re in the right ballpark.
Inevitably this sort of story works best when the reader is at least fairly familiar with the source material, but here Taub delivers a brilliant, fun and often genuinely funny story in its own right, more than capable of entertaining readers regardless of how well they know Pride and Prejudice. For fantasy fans who know Austen’s classic though, and enjoy seeing the magic that lies beneath the surface of Regency England, it offers both a great story and a fiendishly clever new angle from which to appreciate an absolute classic. Come for the Austen references and the clever magical reasoning behind Lydia’s elopement (not to mention Mr Collins’ rapid about-face, and more), and stay for the surprising darkness, clever witchy plot, and gleeful trope inversions.
Review copy provided by the publisher
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Great review! I was going to ask if I need to be familiar with Austen’s works, but you answered that in the last paragraph. Though I haven’t fully read any of her books, I’m cautiously intrigued by this book. Would you say it’s witty? And is it written in a similar style to Austen (because if so, then I doubt it’d be for me, then)?