Pride and Prejudice is one of my favourite books of all time, so I was delighted to come across this. And it was well worth reading - the writing is so accomplished, and so beautiful. There's a very understated restraint here, and it's all the more effective given that some of the narrative choices veer into melodrama. (A pity it couldn't have pulled back a bit more there as well.) Basically, though, this is a parallel narrative to the original, told from the point of view of the servants. And I have to say, that's a monstrously effective choice. Life as a housemaid - Sarah, one of the two housemaids, is the main protagonist here - is hard and exploitative and full of backbreaking labour, and Baker doesn't shy away from all the unglamorous, ugly parts of the role.

But what this different perspective does is alter, and play with, the judgements we've already made of the Pride and Prejudice characters. Elizabeth Bennet, for example, that perennial favourite, tends to get a great deal of modern approval for her love of outdoor walks and tramping through mud, but as Sarah thinks, her hands raw and bleeding from laundry and lye soap, if Elizabeth had the washing of her own clothes she'd be more careful with them. There's something so deeply careless, so thoughtless, about dumping even more work on an underling who's already staggering under the load and not even noticing... but of course we know Elizabeth didn't notice, or if she did she didn't care.

Baker, in this novel, is particularly good at this sort of upended expectation. The characters most often mocked and laughed at - Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins, Mary and Lydia - are treated with the sympathy and understanding that comes from a character who also lives on the difficult margins, while the faults of characters like Elizabeth and (especially) Mr. Bennet are recognised and magnified. (Not to worry, though, Wickham and Lady Catherine are worse than ever, so it's not totally topsy-turvy.) But the whole is very well-done, and a fascinating inversion of a well-loved story.