Longbourn by Jo Baker

Read by Emma Fielding on Audible

How I Found:  I've loved The Bennet's since I read Pride and Prejudice in high school, so the opportunity to read from the perspective of their servants was too tempting despite my hesitation that some of my favorite characters, Elizabeth, Mr. Bennet, might be tainted by the stitches of another seamstress.  However, I can assure, they are better for the re-imagining and really, the girls are only slightly altered.  The beginning plays on the original most, but as the story goes on for Sarah, James, Polly, and The Hills, these, "Threads that drift alone will sometimes twine themselves together, without need for spindle or distaff: brought into each other's ambit they bind themselves tight with the force of their own torsion. And this same torsion, can in the course of things, bundle the resulting cord back upon itself, raveling itself up into a skein, returning to the point of its beginning."
Why You Might Read:  If you too are a returning Austenite, or even like the movie Pride and Prejudice enough to rewatch it before your read, you will be enraptured with this unique perspective of the book and the times. This behind-the-scenes look at what life would have been for everyone else adds to the timelessness, the characters, and the settings that helped to change our world to one filled with the choice to follow our own hearts' endeavors wherever they might lead us.