The Book of Ruth - new P&P sequel
The Book of Ruth by Helen Baker is a Pride and Prejudice sequel set five years after the end of P&P. The author provided us with a description of the plot:
The Book of Ruth is set five years after Pride and Prejudice ends. Mary has spent those five years at home, getting more and more frustrated in her mother’s company. Kitty has spent most of it with her sisters in the North, looking for a husband, but without success. Despite her good looks, and her sisters’ help, her lack of dowry deters suitors.
Back home, the only significant changes have been the death of Uncle Phillips and the retirement of the local apothecary. The latter’s practice has been bought by an outsider, an educated man of advanced ideas which do not suit the neighbourhood. He boards for a while with Aunt Phillips whose curiosity runs away with her into realms of spiritism and mesmerism, into which she draws Mrs Bennet - much to her husband’s disgust.
The book starts with Kitty’s disheartened return to Longbourn where she finds Mary equally determined to escape the domestic circle. Mary has whiled away a long sermon by thumbing through the Bible. She has found a complete guide to husband-hunting - in the Book of Ruth. She is determined to put it into practice (suitably modified for refined modern society) to find husbands for both of them. Will she succeed? Can she possibly? With her father looking daily frailer, her mother obsessed with the occult, and Mr Collins waiting in the wings, time presses.
The author also said, “I have done my utmost to conform to the language of the period and to be historically accurate. That said, I wrote it for fun.” The best reason, in our opinion!
The book is available from Lulu.com either in hard copy or as a PDF download.
