What Kitty Did Next by Carrie Kablean @CarrieKablean @RedDoorBooks @LoveBooksGroup #blogtour

Delighted to join the blog tour for What Kitty Did Next by Carrie Kablean today! My thanks to Kelly at Love Books Group for the invitation to join and to the publisher for my review copy.

Author : Carrie Kablean
Title : What Kitty Did Next
Pages : 416
Publisher : RedDoor Publishing
Publication date : June 28, 2018

England, 1813. Nineteen-year-old Catherine Bennet lives in the shadow of her two eldest sisters, Elizabeth and Jane, who have both made excellent marriages. No one expects Kitty to amount to anything. Left at home in rural Hertfordshire with her neurotic and nagging mother, and a father who derides her as “silly and ignorant,” Kitty is lonely, diffident and at a loss as to how to improve her situation.

When her world unexpectedly expands to London and the Darcy’s magnificent country estate in Derbyshire, she is overjoyed. Keen to impress this new society, and to change her family’s prejudice, Kitty does everything she can to improve her mind and manners—and for the first time feels liked and respected.

However, one fateful night at Pemberley, a series of events and misunderstandings conspire to ruin Kitty’s reputation and she is sent back home in disgrace. But Kitty has learnt from her new experiences and what she does next does next will not only surprise herself, but everyone else too.

Since it’s been ages since I read or watched Pride and Prejudice, I was a little hesitant about reading this one. Not just because I thought I might have been too unfamiliar with previous events but also because this is Jane Austen and it’s always a little tricky picking up something so iconic. But I shouldn’t have worried, as within the first few pages I once again found myself completely immersed into the lives of the Bennett family.

What Kitty Did Next focuses on daughter Catherine, also known as Kitty. Life at Longbourn has changed dramatically since Kitty saw three of her sisters get married. Kitty is lonely and bored, especially without her sidekick Lydia, and feels trapped at home with just her parents and sister Mary for company. But then she’s invited to stay over in London and even Pemberley. Suddenly the world looks incredibly different and Kitty might just figure out what kind of person she really is.

If someone had told me this was always supposed to be a kind of sequel and it was actually written back in the day, I would have believed them. The author does a fantastic job at creating the right atmosphere and staying true to the characters most of us are so familiar with.  The story flows and it all feels very natural, as if it was always meant to be like this.

It’s been wonderful having the opportunity to spend some more time with these delightful characters and a part of me would actually be quite happy with more. If you like Jane Austen, you will most definitely enjoy this but I also feel it’s a novel for any historical fiction reader, whether you’re familiar with Pride or Prejudice or not.

What Kitty Did Next is available to buy!

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Goodreads

I was born and raised in London, and came to Sydney in 1990. I love both cities – shame they are so far apart.

I have always loved reading and when I was a kid and the mobile library made its weekly stop nearby I read anything in the historical fiction genre I could get my hands on. Especially loved Tudor England. Then Jane Austen came into my life, and never left. And I started working my way through other great English classic novels (an ongoing pastime). But my tastes range farther afield too, Junot Diaz, Stella Gibbons, Tom Wolfe, Graham Greene, Karen Joy Fowler, Alice Sebold…. have to stop, it will go on forever.
Theatre is also a passion. I reviewed for The Sunday Telegraph for more than a decade, and still post the occasional review.

I was a journalist with The Australian for more than 20 years, and now write for my own amusement – and hopefully yours!