…Imagine how it was before Netherfield is let.

‘Intrigue At Longbourn’ is probably the most authentic ‘Pride & Prejudice’ derivative you will ever read.

Elizabeth Bennet enjoys a lively six months before Netherfield Park is let at last. She is appalled to learn that a pregnant teenage kitchen maid, Alice, was dismissed from Longbourn House eight or nine years earlier with no thought for her welfare or that of her unborn child.

Unable to involve her family on the occasion, she approaches the recently arrived, handsome, young rector of Longbourn parish, Mr Wilde, and he agrees to assist her in secret. Their apparently clandestine association is noticed and misinterpreted by some.

Meanwhile, to secure the family’s future, Mr Bennet embarks on a complicated, high-risk scheme which is ultimately in danger of spiralling out of control.

Holidays provide welcome diversions and the social scene is enhanced by a young scientist named Julius Fairweather.

Nevertheless, father’s and daughter’s separate manoeuvres inevitably clash, stoked up by a jealous mischief-maker, as the summer races inexorably towards Michaelmas of 1797 when a young man of large fortune named Bingley first enters the neighbourhood.

…Become better acquainted with the characters in Jane Austen’s magnificent ‘Pride & Prejudice’ and prepare yourself for the sequel, ‘Menace At Pemberley’…

…Witness the first encounters between Elizabeth and Darcy…

…Read the first chapter of ‘Menace At Pemberley’ which begins immediately after Elizabeth and Darcy marry and continues with a large Christmas family gathering at Pemberley as foretold in ‘Pride & Prejudice’…

Written in a classic, easy-to-read, literary style, ‘Intrigue At Longbourn’ is a well-researched account of life in the late eighteenth century for the landed gentry and others and is a tribute to literary icon Jane Austen.