This book probably deserves more than three stars, but I really didn't like it. I feel like most of not liking it is just where I am right now. I did a lot of crying while reading this book, so much that I woke my husband up and he said, "you know, usually its the baby that wakes me up with crying." 
 This book is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice from the servants point of view. The first volume or section of the book is exactly what you expect, glimpses of familiar characters and scenes through the lens of new characters and dialog. The third volume takes a sharp turn into the awful depravity of the Peninsular War. I also have to say that I don't like my favorite characters tarnished. I especially didn't like the portrait of Lizzie Bennet as brittle and unsure of herself. I did like the author's lyrical language and descriptions. 
 "There could be no wearing of clothes without laundering, just as surely as there could be no going without clothes..." 
 "Work just lingered and festered and lay in wait, to make you slip up in the morning." 
 "Behind her, in her absence, the house was grinding along, its cogs turning and teeth linking..." 
 "these things were not fatal, no matter what poets and novelists liked to pretend." 
 "She'd turn this way and then that, race on a few steps, make her choice; but then she'd find herself turned quite around, and sliding back to the start, back into her place." 
 "But what I can't see, what I have no idea at all of, is what it will be like day to day, day after day, just him and me. I am not certain of it I find I am a little nervous." 
 "She rounded one bend, expectant, but there was nothing - then the road swung past an outcrop, and the land fell away, and a green valley and a brilliant blue lake and sunshine opened out beyond."