REVIEW; The Wager

Title: The Wager: A Pride and Prejudice Variation
Author: Kate Bedlow, L.K. Rigel 
Genre: Adult, romance
Type: E-book
Publisher: Beastie Press

When Mary visits Charlotte at Hunsford, she meets Major Carleton Quartermaine, a brash relation to Lady Catherine de Bourgh. “Carley” sees a side of Mary she’s always kept hidden, and he utterly disarms her when they sing a duet together.

The attention is unexpected and thrilling, but can prim Mary give her heart to a man she cannot trust?

If we have known each other a while, you may have heard me talk about my growing interest in reading Pride & Prejudice variation novels. Not those focused on the main characters of Jane Austen’s novels however, but rather those focused on Mary Bennet.

Yes, that’s right, Mary Bennet.

And this little novella gives me one of my main desires for a story based on plain, secluded Mary – someone that sees her. Mary as we see her in this novella is pedantic, yes, but because she finds herself unable to gather her thoughts in a way that she can express easily. She is awkward and uncomfortable and very much aware that everyone sees her as the ‘lesser’ Bennet sister. There is a blossoming of her character in becoming more confident, but as the novella is quite short, it is not highlighted very much.

Our love interest is the character to bring this out in Mary simply by virtue of seeing her, of not holding her to any expectations, of accepting her and liking her as she is. Is there an element of insta-love to this story? Yes, yes there is, but it is handled rather charmingly.

I did rather like the explorations – a little bit – of the other characters we know from the original novel from Mary’s point of view rather than a more acerbic and judging Lizzy. The dynamics were different, because Mary by virtue of being far too aware of her surroundings is much more concerned with how people perceive her and much more cautious as a result. It allows us to see the change in how she handles herself at the end of the novella, where she is less prone to pedantic speeches. At the end of the day, she has grown from being rather harsh on herself and dismal of her own prospects to liking herself and knowing she deserves to be happy no matter how it comes about.

It was rather odd that for a story titled ‘The Wager’, the bet itself was a very small part of it. It seemed rather shoe-horned in and out of character when compared to the rest of the novella. It was followed by a series of contrived instances – everything to tie up the story was quick and convenient and would have pulled me out of it if not for the fact that I simply really did love the way the author wrote Mary, and subsequently, how Carley adored Mary.

There is an empathy to Mary that I do not see a lot of authors give her. A grace and a softness in her affection for her mother and sisters, an understanding she gives the more exuberant members of her family that Lizzy does not. She genuinely loves her family, and it comes across. And because of that, there is a bitterness towards her father, and her father’s favourite daughter though she does extend more grace towards Lizzy than Mr Bennet. I rather enjoyed that, because it felt realistic, and is something I believe about those characters and how they look at the world around them.

One of my major gripes is how short the novella was. I breezed through it, and I did enjoy it, and until I am able to get my hands on more Mary Bennet ebooks for some reason (they’re regionally locked, apparently?), I’m going to reread this whenever I need an easy Mary Bennet fix.

• What are your thoughts on adaptations, variations and retellings of classic novels?
• Who is your favourite Austen character?
• Do you have a favourite P&P adaptation?

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