Kitty Bennet's Diary
Series: Pride and Prejudice Chronicles, Book 3
By: Anna Elliott / Narrated by: Mary Sarah
Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
Move over Lizzie B. Kitty has morphed into an AWEsome heroine here!!!
And FINALLY! here we are at m’ favorite of the “Pride and Prejudice Chronicles”.
Now I really liked, near-loved, the first two. But here author Anna Elliott does the impossible: She makes Kitty Bennet a powerhouse of a young woman. Kitty? Flighty, flaky, Lydia-following, Kitty?
Yesssss!
It’s like this, see: Kitty traipsed off with Georgiana to Brussels right around the time that oh, saaaay, the Battle of Waterloo took place. An elderly woman who’d been through much in her own life, was unfazed (For the most part) by the horror and gore, and she inspired the girls to roll up their sleeves to help the wounded, the suffering, the dying.
All this had a truly powerful effect on Kitty, especially as she’d given her ex-fiancé the idea that they’d be a couple once again after the battle only to learn that he’d been killed. This sobered the once-gadabout gal right up, and she’s vowed never to love again. Kitty has become sober, serious, and only interactions with children can make her smile.
Further, she and Mary stay at Uncle and Aunt Gardiner’s home for various reasons, and Kitty gets it into her head to find Mary a suitable husband (This after Mary, surprisingly, weeps after a shindig wherein she wasn’t asked to dance a single time). And so, Mary’s character is addressed as well here in Kitty Bennet’s Diary.
So Mary’s character is fleshed-out from P&P Canon, and Elliott seeeems to take liberties with her as well. It could all be vastly unsettling, but the way Elliott crafts it all is by Hanging A Lantern on everything, as in: Kitty is regularly surprised and amazed by how Mary’s transforming, addresses it in her diary, but she notes that Mary is hitting a time in her life where she’s well aware of how lonely it’s becoming what with sisters off and married, and she’s well aware that she’s getting older and would p’raps like a home of her own, with children, without being The Dull Sister.
Which makes for an enjoyable journey as one traverses the not-quite 9-hours of the story. Throw in some shady dealings that a pregnant Jane winds up falling into that Kitty and Georgianna must extricate her from, and we now, dear fellow Accomplice, have a rollicking good time.
Plus? There is the clergyman Lancelot Dalton who keeps finding Kitty in acts of charity, in acts of joyful playfulness with difficult children, in acts of defiance wherein she WILL keep her beloved sister, Mary, safe from harm (A rogue from the prior volumes makes an encore appearance and Kitty manages to give a good swift metaphorical kick to the groin that sets him in his place).
There are looming scandals as Mary misguidedly sows a few wild oats, there are wounded soldiers trying to live with the horrors they witnessed at Waterloo, there are abandoned children needing friendship and affection, and there’s the budding romance that Kitty is desperate to shy away from. Then too, there’s the mother of her ex-fiancé who would dearly love to see the girl who made her son happy before he was cut down in battle.
All very emotionally evocative.
Which brings me to Mary Sarah’s performance. She turns in a fine performance yet again, complete with Kitty trying to talk an ex-soldier out of blowing his brains out. He scoffs and sneers at her, but she disabuses him of the notion that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about regarding Battle. Because she too has nightmares of all she witnessed, the horrors she saw, her inability to help so very many young men who were, ultimately, lost causes and would die, no matter her earnest and loving ministrations. She remembers the gore, the slashes and devastating wounds, the death and the stench. And she too wanders through her current days numb and exhausted from trying to emotionally survive. Sarah handles all of this with extreeeeme passion, p’raps a wee bit tooo much passion, but I DO remember getting a big ol’ lump in m’ throat during my first Listen of this, a few tears rolling down my face. So I s’pose I must fess up that, yeh, maybe here, the third Listen, it was a bit much, but apPARently Sarah’s efforts were vastly successful in getting that Sob Fest going initially. Brava, and well-done, Sarah. And really? I do NOT understand the panning of your other P&P Variations. I’m rather looking forward to getting around to other audiobooks in my Library that you’ve narrated.
Is this the end? Have I really, really finished with the Series? Boooooo!
Oh, wait! There’s but a single other “Diary” that Elliott has written that is available. As this author has dropped all Romance and has since focused on taking over the “Sherlock Holmes'“ tales her Pater started? Well, I’m sad sad SAD, but at leeeeast I have ONE other that I can get to.
Until then?
Lemme just offer a final: You a lover of All Things Jane Austen? DO get this, and DO listen to a jolly good unfolding of a strong and clever and capable Kitty.
Yesssss, THAT Kitty! You’ll be mighty glad you did!
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