The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennett

By Katherine Cowley

Tule Publishing     2021

342 pages     Historical Fiction

Mary Bennett is the third girl of five in Jane Austen’s Bennet family. She is often passed over, ignored, or told to stop playing the pianoforte. Katherine Cowley has chosen to develop the character of Mary in her series of historical spy novels based on Jane Austen's characters. When The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet begins, Mr. Bennet has just died and the family is in chaos. They are trying to get ready for the funeral with funeral clothing and gloves and all the other protocol of an early 1800s funeral. A cousin, Mr. Collins, has arrived to take possession of the house; Mrs. Bennet is frantic; and Mary is quickly realizing that she has few options. She cannot stay unmarried in the home of her childhood.

An unknown relative, Lady Trafford, arrives and makes Mary an offer that she can’t refuse—move with her to Castle Durrington and obtain an education to be a governess. Mary feels she has no choice, and soon leaves with Lady Trafford and her nephew, Henry Withrow, to move into Castle Durrington, far away from her mother and sisters.

When she begins her education at the castle, Mary soon realizes that something is going on involving Lady Trafford and Mr. Withrow in what appears to be illegal activity—or is it spying--because England is beginning to fear an invasion from Napoleon Bonaparte, and Castle Durrington is right on the coastline. Mary sets out to discover what she can about these goings-on, all the while maintaining the pretense of learning drawing, French, economics, and history from her hosts.

As the book summary says, “Never underestimate the observation skills of a woman who hides in the background.”

A huge disclaimer as I continue this review. For reasons that I can’t explain, I had never read any Jane Austen books nor seen a single movie adaptation before I began Katherine Cowley’s inventive “next chapter.” All of the Bennet girls were strangers to me, and I had no grasp of Austen’s style of writing. So I struggled. I struggled as the difficult roles of women were discussed in great detail. I struggled through the way the women were discouraged from appropriately grieving their father’s death. I struggled through a several page discussion of how to fold paper so a letter could get mailed, protected from prying eyes. All of these details are extensively explored within the narrative.

I celebrate the vast amount of research that Cowley had to have done to include the details that I kept underlining, including, for instance, the name of a famous pastor of the day and his sermons and the way that women had to ride sidesaddle.  The beginning of each chapter quotes some of the research the author has done to aid in the understanding of what is going to happen in the upcoming chapter. The quotes alone are quite impressive.

Once the mystery of what was going on at the castle began to develop, I got caught up in the story line and became more impressed with Mary, her inquisitiveness, her courage, and her ability to step out of the bonds of convention in order to solve the mystery.

After I finished the book, I watched the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice and immediately noticed that the character of Mary is scarcely approached in the narrative. No wonder Cowley chose her to develop more fully.

What I didn’t mention previously in this review is that Katherine Cowley teaches writing at Western Michigan University and lives in our community. She will be at our book club next week, and I will have lots of questions to ask her. She also has two additional books in this series: The True Confessions of a London Spy, and The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception.  I have both of them and plan to continue my adventures with Mary Bennet.

Katherine Cowley’s website. One of the interesting parts of her website is a series of blog posts about creative writing principles. She has won awards for her lessons. Check it out.