![]() ![]() Through the eyes of Sarah, we learn about her day-to-day chores and what goes behind the scenes as the rich folks go about in their leisurely lives. ![]() This book appealed because I was looking for historical fiction that gave me a feel for what life was like for the working class. Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic-into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars-and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended. ![]() But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them. Pride and Prejudice was only half the story.Historical Fiction Review of Longbourn by Jo Baker ![]()
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