Being bewitched by The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch

 Out of the batch of books that I recently received for my birthday, the one that I dove into first was Melinda Taub’s fantastical take on Jane Austen’s most iconic novel with quite the twist.

To start with, our leading lady here is not Elizabeth or Jane or even Miss Mary Bennet; rather we have The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch. Yes, as it happens, Lydia is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter (due to three elder sisters that didn’t survive their early years) and the first sign of magic that she has is being able to claim a cat as her familiar and turn her into a sister named Kitty.

Lydia’s powers are noticed by her Aunt Phillips, who gives her some instruction into the mystical arts yet there is a limit to her aunt’s knowledge that causes Lydia to seek alliances elsewhere as times goes on.

A major reason for Lydia to find more skilled witches to learn from is due to mistakenly giving a promise to an ancient entity awakened by her powers; one of the targets of its wrath is Kitty, who has very few defenses against such malevolent beings.

The bond between Lydia and Kitty is one of the strongest emotional connections in the book. While Lydia, true to her original version, can be silly and selfish, here her humanity in caring about Kitty’s welfare (to some extent) is a step in the proper direction when it comes to expanding the character:

In order to save Kitty as well as herself, Lydia must go to Brighton in order to find the Jewel of Propriety , a source of power sure to appease such a dangerous enemy.

There, Lydia teams up with Harriet Forster , the new young wife of the regimental commander whose soldiers include Mr. Wickham, who has a deep tie to Lydia’s nemesis and dark intentions of his own. Harriet’s magical prowess and social connections do help her young protege out with her search but her search but not without a price to pay along the way.

As this story is told mainly by Lydia herself (via a long letter of explanation to a certain party), I couldn’t help but hear these adventures chronicled in my head by the voice of Julia Sawalha, who played this character in the 1995 miniseries adaptation.

No offense to any other portrayal of Lydia (I do like the 2005 version quite a bit) but between this version of Pride and Prejudice plus her role as the straight edge daughter in Absolutely Fabulous, this is the go-to voice of the character for me:

 

Meanwhile, one of the many pleasures that Taub’s novels offers to Jane Austen fans are the expansions given to such supporting players such as Mary King, a brief rival for Wickham’s affection who is a more devious and capable opponent here.

A welcome surprise was the introduction of Miss Lambe, who comes to Brighton from Sanditon and turns out to be a major player in the game of power that Lydia finds herself in. Bringing such a character from Austen’s unfinished final book was a good choice and a well thought out one indeed.

As someone who did enjoy the three seasons of Sanditon that we got on Masterpiece, Taub’s depiction of Miss Lambe is very well suited to the lovely compelling one shown on the small screen, in my humble opinion:

All in all, The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch was the ideal Jane Austen flavored birthday cake sprinkled with magic and I wouldn’t mind having another slice of this charming tale again.

I do hope that other Austen admirers take up this tasty tome and devour it with joy. I know that some might prefer the standard edition of Pride and Prejudice (which is perfectly fine) but do allow for the rest of us to have a little fun here. 

Also, for new readers to Jane Austen, a rethinking about certain characters encourages more creative insights and makes our mutual enjoyment of Austen timeless and timely: