My Cousin Caroline (Paperback)

Average Customer Review
( [1 customer review] ) 

Share your thoughts with other customers:
 [Submit your Review] 

Most Recent Customer Reviews

A Remarkable Woman -- Ahead of her Time, September 14, 2009

By Amy Z

My Cousin Caroline, Book Six in the wonderful Pemberley Chronicles series by author Rebecca Ann Collins, tells the story of Caroline Gardiner Fitzwilliam, daughter of original cast members Mr. and Mrs. Edward Gardiner of Cheapside and later Lambton and wife of Col. Richard Fitzwilliam, Mr. Darcy’s cousin. Influenced by her elder cousins Lizzy and Jane, and romantically inspired by their loving relationships with Darcy and Bingley, Caroline (who first appeared as a child in Book One of “The Chronicles”) has come of age. She’s grown into a smart, strong, and tenacious woman (like so many of Jane Austen’s characters). Married to “our favorite Colonel,” Caroline has, unsurprisingly, known great joy in her life. She’s also experienced tremendous sorrow. Both helped to make her a role model for her extended network of family and friends. Readers of the series will recognize many of the plot lines and events which take place in this book from previous volumes. However, seeing them here, viewed and experienced through a different lens, affords the reader a sort of emotional validation. For me, it was like watching a wall of video screens whose cameras were all trained on the same location, but placed at different angles. Hence the viewer (or reader in our case) sees events on-screen unfolding from a variety of slightly different perspectives. Caroline Fitzwilliam’s complex character had been hinted at, touched upon, and alluded to in previous books in the series. But those references only teased this reader into wanting to know more about her. Caroline had been a peripheral character in Books 1 – 5, but here, she is a shining star – taking control of her life as she falls in love, marries, raises her children, supports her husband in his political career and helps run her father’s business, when he falls ill. This is not your typical Victorian housewife. Readers of the series will know that there are some difficult parts to read, which deal with the loss of two beloved children. I was reluctant to read them myself. However, like Lizzy at the piano, I managed to “fudge and slur my way through the difficult passages,” to arrive at another wonderful reading experience! Series readers will undoubtedly be pleased at the reappearance of Mr. Bennet and Mr. Collins in a humorous episode at Pemberley, where Mr. Bennet enjoys baiting his pompous, self- important and completely unwitting cousin, in much the same ways that he did in the original Pride and Prejudice (and to the great amusement of the rest of the company.) For readers new to the series, the book can easily stand on its own, but I must warn you… the characters (new and old) are addicting! You’ll want to read more… and luckily, there are many more volumes in this series to read—both before and after My Cousin Caroline.