Humility and Tolerance by Noni Valentine #Review

 

Welcome to Regency England and the world of the characters first seen in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Humility and Tolerance by Noni Valentine was published by Quaternary Publishing  on 18 April 2024.

 
A sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Seven years after Elizabeth Bennett married Fitzwilliam Darcy, they are still deeply in love, with two small children. But paradise is showing cracks now that Darcy’s aged housekeeper has died and Elizabeth must take up her duties. It’s more than one woman, even one as capable as Elizabeth, can manage.

Her sister Kitty, with Elizabeth and Jane’s help and a heroic effort on Kitty’s part, has outgrown her silly youth and matured into a sensible young woman—who, being sensible, spends as much time away from her parents and visiting her sisters as possible. Darcy’s sister Georgiana, with perhaps more influence from Elizabeth than is good for her, has become a confident, independent woman who is nevertheless ripe for romance. Charlotte Collins, newly widowed, is searching for a way out of the household of her husband’s crabbed patron, Lady Catherine, that doesn’t involve returning to her parents’ house.

Elizabeth sees a way to restore order to Pemberley and give herself a chance to to breathe: she offers Kitty a job as housekeeper of the estate, and Charlotte a job as governess of her adored children.

With these four women under one roof, chaos and the unexpected are inevitable. Both Kitty and Georgiana meet and begin falling in love with honorable, interesting men, neither of whom are gentlemen and therefore not considered eligible matches for them. Charlotte has the opposite problem: a childhood acquaintance who is now a Lord has become fixated on her and begins diligently wooing her, when all she wants is a quiet life and a chance to recover from eight years of marriage to a man she never loved.

When Elizabeth and Darcy learn of their sisters’ budding romances, each has the same reaction: delight at their sister-in-law’s choice and outrage at that of their sister. Now throw a ball into the mix, with Elizabeth’s mother bringing up forbidden topics from the past and her father hiding from the noise, Jane and Bingley attempting to calm the waters, Elizabeth trying to set up all three of the younger women, and Charlotte’s Lord pursuing her all over the dance floor—and an explosion is sure to happen.

This charming romance will delight all lovers of Jane Austen’s masterpiece who have ever wondered, “What happened next?”

 My Thoughts

The thought of a sequel to Pride and Prejudice is irresistible and you can't help but be interested to see how, in this world, life might have turned out for Elizabeth, Darcy and their families. When you start the story, you have clear expectations about the characters. I must admit to being disappointed that Mr Collins  was not to be in this story, as he is such a fantastic comic creation. As the story develops, you begin to leave Jane Austen's writing behind and become immersed in this world as envisaged bu Noni Valentine. I did find that Charlotte's character  has been altered through her unfortunate marriage. Freed from the tyranny of Lady Catherine, she seems to have found her own voice. She has always been a pragmatist.

    Elizabeth is planning how to engineer romances for the three single women in her household. I have always enjoyed the different models of marriage shown in Jane Austen's books, so these three separate stories added to that range. Money, status, social position are still thought of as essential in a woman's life but in this story, you see that some have differing ideas. Of course, some can afford to have such attitudes, others cannot.  This is a really enjoyable excursion into Regency England. Life at Pemberley is an oasis amidst harsher social views outside and you sense that Elizabeth and Darcy have established an environment which avoids false pretension and values genuine feelings. 

In short: Hugely enjoyable Regency romance

About the Author

Noni Valentine grew up in the north central part of the U.S., but moved away after graduating from high school, and never again stayed in one place for long. She has been writing for most of her life, but discovered Jane Austen as an adult and fell in love all over again.

She lives with a small menagerie of feathered and furry companions. Oh, almost forgot—there’s a human in that collection as well.

Book links: Amazon US  |  Amazon UK

Thanks to Noni Valentine, Quaterary Publishing and Rachel of Rachel's Random Resources  for a copy of the book and a place on the tour.

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