Riffing on Jane Austen as spin-off or fan fiction or simply an alternate take seems to have gotten increasingly popular over the years. Or perhaps it’s just a matter of the years piling up, creating more and more opportunity for someone to try something a bit different (or not) from what has already been tried.

The thing is, that not every twist on Jane Austen really works. Even when they do succeed, such works are often so far and away from the original, or spliced up with some other genre entirely, that the Austen connection is more gimmick than anything else.

Charlotte’s Story by Carolyn Korsmeyer finds another path, resulting in a novel centered on Charlotte Lucas and her marriage to Mr. Collins that feels entirely true to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in genre as well as story-line. Perhaps most amazingly, even though it’s written more than 200 years after the original, it somehow finds its own voice while simultaneously avoiding sounding completely anachronistic. This is no small feat, given some of the more modern perspectives assigned to this alternate view of Charlotte at times.

Charlotte’s Story tracks closely to Austen’s original throughout the early part of the novel, its first-person narrative at first offering a new angle from Charlotte’s perspective for those events we already know well. Even when the novel veers off into its own story of Charlotte’s life at Hunsford and beyond, there are periodic ties that keep the reader grounded in the original story.

While it would be tough to match Austen beat for beat over the span of a couple of centuries, Charlotte’s Story is a pleasant and engaging read. It would have been altogether too easy to misstep into anachronism, gimmick, cartoonish-ness, straight-up imitation or just plain boredom - but the book doesn’t suffer from any of that, at least not to any extent that distracts from enjoying the story. It does test the limits of what one expects to find in an Austen novel at times, but Charlotte’s Story is fun to read in its own right, with its own plot and reasons to exist — and at the same time, it’s genuinely easy to feel you’re getting another glimpse into the universe that contains Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Review based on Advanced Reader Copy provided through LibraryThing Early Reviewers program ( )

I really enjoyed this book and the author seemed to really capture Jane Austin's voice. I could have believed that I was reading another of Austin's works, especially in the first half of the book where the familiar events unfold from a different point of view. Once the story moved into the second half of the book, the voice changed a bit as the story moved away from the know events of Pride and Prejudice. There were little events here and there that signaled that this was not an Austin work because they were events that I don't think would have been mentioned in works of the time, but they in no-way spoiled the tone or flow of the book. The story starts with Charlotte hearing of Mr. Collins visit to the Bennett's and develops from there. It was delightful to watch the characters grow and attain more depth as well as see what else was happening in the world of P&P. I am always curious about what happens next or what happened to those other characters in a novel and this novel answered the question of what happened to Charlotte and Mr. Collins as well as hinting at several other characters. I even became almost sympathetic to Mr. Collins. I definitely would recommend this book to fans of Jane Austin and to fans of the Regency Era. ( )

I enjoyed reading this book for the most part. The author tries to imagine the life of Charlotte Lucas after her marriage to Mr. Collins. The story includes the cpuple getting to know each other in their marriage, their interactions with other characters known from Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte's own interactions and an unexpected friendship.

I thought this story was good but not great. I enjoyed it, but am not sure I will read it again. One thing I didn't care for, as another reviewer also mentions, is the uncharacteristic portrayal of Mary Bennet. I also don't feel that the question that has always been in my mind after Pride and Prejudice, why Mr. Collins didn't marry Mary, was not answered (lol). ( )

This book intrigued me because I thought it interesting to have a story from Charlotte Lucas/Collins’ POV. I will say that this book wasn’t for me, but it was well done and gave a great story perspective. The book starts from the events of Pride and Prejudice starting at Mr. Collins’ proposal to Lizzie. I always liked Charlotte in the book because she was very practical, determined, and strong. I think the downside is that she isn’t extremely exciting and I just end up feeling so bad for her (especially her creepy wedding night). I had a hard time getting into the story and sticking with it. The change in characterization from the original book was interesting but didn’t work for me. Overall I’m glad I read it because it gave me food for thought. I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving a free copy. ( )

I received a complimentary ARC in exchange for an honest review of this book.

Charlotte's Story picks up the story of Charlotte Lucas where Jane Austen left it. In Pride and Prejudice we see Charlotte make a very hasty decision to marry in the wake of the kerfuffle caused by Lizzy's refusal of Mr. Collins. We see Charlotte again briefly at the parsonage at Rosings, but we don't really get an idea of what her life must have been like or what motivated here to make the decisions she made. Carolyn Korsmeyer attempts to answer those questions with this book and imagine what events and people must have come through Charlotte's life.

I think for most part the book is successful in this until things seem to get slightly out of hand (at least for me) towards the end. The writing style is easy to read and evokes an Austen-esque writer and I found the book enjoyable to read, in the main. The first 1/3 or so of the book follows the events in P&P fairly closely, but from the point of view of Charlotte. Once it diverges from the P&P story I think we get a fairly credible narrative on what Charlotte may have done and who she met. But it does get weird towards the end and the author does not treat all of Jane Austen's characters respectfully.

Of course a modern writer must confront what a writer in Austen's time would never do--what about the sex!? While Jane Austen wrote her stories so they would end long before having to confront the fact of sex, the author here has no such luxury as we know Charlotte is married quickly and we know what must happen next. I do not think this was handled well and ultimately it's what turned me off from the book as I felt the author's control over the topic slipping away. It ended up being a bit icky when approached from the context of a woman who marries a man she knows not at all and has no rights of any kind.

Upon requesting the book I had some small hope of a more psychological study of the Charlotte/William relationship, but we don't really get to know William Collins much more than we do in P&P. It's an interesting read for someone who likes Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice in particular, but it's not a book I would put on my permanent bookshelf. ( )