Lady Catherine's Necklace

Joan Aiken brings her trademark wit to the world of Rosings Park, giving Anne de Bourgh an actual inner life and letting Lady Catherine be gloriously insufferable before being kidnapped. Publishers Weekly called Aiken the closest anyone gets to a genuine Austen sequel, and the sharp irony here earns that. The plot, though — blizzard, scheming siblings, a fake diamond necklace, an abduction — tips well past Austen's quiet social realism into Dickensian sensation territory. Austen purists will feel the gap. For readers who love Aiken on her own terms and enjoy Regency-flavored mystery more than precise pastiche, this is entertaining. For anyone expecting the cadence and restraint of Pride and Prejudice itself, adjust expectations before the first chapter.