Austens of Broadford (The Midwife Chronicles)
To anyone else in early 18th-century England, Eliza Austen (Jane Austen’s great-grandmother) would appear to be the perfect daughter-in-law: she’s well-born, virtuous, sensible, pretty, and fertile, bringing forth a male heir and plenty of spares. Yet her father-in-law, wealthy John Austen III, despises her. When tragedy strikes, Eliza discovers just how deep the old man’s spite runs.
Based on an autobiographical memorandum written by the real-life Eliza Austen, this novel is the third in Penfield’s Midwife Chronicles trilogy, the connection being that some of the characters from the earlier novels are Eliza’s dear friends (and, of course, midwives). While the characters (except for the villain) are likable and Penfield writes well, I found the book to be a bit of a hodgepodge. Most of the story is split between Eliza, whose story is told in the third person, and her young daughter Betty, who contributes a first-person narrative and who at age seven is made to inform a girl of her own age, “I lead a comfortably dull life in the small village of Horsmonder.” Some lower-class characters pop in to add color to the story, and an omniscient narrator intrudes at one point. A character who has visions fits in rather uneasily with the Austenesque storylines concerning the gentry and primogeniture.
This being said, however, there are some amusing and poignant moments here. Lovers of all things Jane Austen will enjoy being introduced to a formidable woman whose plight may well have influenced some of her great-granddaughter’s novels.
