This was an enjoyable romance. There wasn't any mystery or dramatics - just well fleshed out characters with normal passions, insecurities and flaws. I like that each character was allowed to develop deeper feelings over time rather than immediately. The storyline flows evenly. Captain Edward Tremaine returns from war, tired and weakened from sickness and sees what he calls an "English rose" (Jane Hampton) tending a garden. He speaks to her for a few moments before making his way home.

Jane is well acquainted with Edward's family. Edward's younger brother James recently jilted her sister Fanny. Being young and immature, James was appalled that Fanny's recent illness left her weak with a sallow complexion and hairless. Though she was improving slowly, her long hair was now short and curly and slightly darkened and his reaction to her loss of beauty was painful for all.

As friendship develops between Edward and Jane, Jane's feelings intensify and she believes Edward had deeper feelings also. But when he makes a trip to London, Edward falls head over heels for a glamorous fortune-hunter Lady Julietta Blackwood. Edward brings Julietta, her aunt, and her brother (Lord Blackwood) to his country home to complete his courtship, crushing Jane's heart in the process. Although others seem to see through Julietta's ruse, it will take some time for Edward to note her shallowness and find where his heart really lies.

In the meantime, there is the funny and mysterious Lord Granville who in accordance with his uncle, the late duke's will, must dress in 1700's costume while at the country estate. He is a bigger fish than Captain Tremaine and Julietta is VERY interested! Fanny, as she begins to recover and her looks improve, finds her own bevy of beaus much to James chagrin. He begins to regret his hasty reaction over her illness and wishes her back. Will he win her love again? Will Julietta snare her Duke or the Captain? Will Lord Blackwood succeed in seducing the disheartened Jane?

Excellent reading. Enjoyable and doesn't follow the predictable storyline of other regency novels. Well worth obtaining.

Cusk's style is somewhat labored and verbose in spots -- early on I found myself hacking through the metaphors with a machete -- but the intriguing characters, particularly Martin and Stella, are well worth the work. This is NOT a plot centered novel; external events are merely the catalysts for the important internal action. As a novelist, Cusk is obviously interested in the psychology of human beings, not contrived, action filled plots. Such rich characterization is unusual in contemporary fiction -- the Farm is filled with fascinatingly complex folk. If you like to be engaged and involved in what you read, this book is for you.

I had to lop off one star in my assessment, despite my admiration for the author's exceptional talent. I was immediately captured by the style and the intriguing voice of Stella. It was clear that this was a character in the midst of some turmoil, since every minute event was examined tortuously (the anticipated arrival of Mr. Madden at the train station was a good tip-off that our Stella was not quite normal)and each mundane occurence (entering the food shop) became an act pregnant with possibilites. The hilarity of Stella's inability to do anything right soon gave way to expectation of the next debacle and after a while I became tired of the plot and wondered what had brought Stella to the Maddens in the first place. I had no doubt that a mental breakdown of some sort had taken place and 3/4 of the way through the book I was impatient to know her story. However, it was all wrapped up in the last few pages in a most unsatisfactory way, leaving me feeling a bit cheated. I read this book in a day: at first the lyrical writing held me in its thrall. Ultimately though, I grew tired of waiting for the denoument and wanted it to end. I look forward to reading this young author's next effort. Her exceptional talent can only age beautifully and if she can get that plot to move at a better pace, she has every chance of reaching literary nirvana.

One is initially tempted to suggest that the English landscape, having already suffered through various bovine and vegetable scourges, is now being decimated by a viral infection which causes gifted young novelists to write books which combine first person narratives by neurotic-but-intelligent heroines and plot points that take rather pointed (i.e., "pointed points" indeed) satiric nods at 18th and 19th Century literary plots.

Rachel Cusk's the Country Life, though, mines its sources with wit and style, and has the feel of a 30s farce, rather like A.A. Milne's comedies for adults. Ms. Cusk has a bit of fun with allusions to the varied novels of country retreat. Yet, the novel does not feel artificial at all, nor is it particularly smug.

The tone is very light, witty but not fall-down funny. There's a whiff of Jane Eyre here, and bit of Cold Comfort farm there, maybe a nod or two at Wilkie Collins over yonder, a set of characters who might populate John Mortimer or Muriel Spark novels, a good bit of the class pretension/class distinction motif, and more than a touch (indeed, a whole portion) of the urban dweller goes rural satire. But this book is not confined by its sources--Rachel Cusk is a *real* novelist, the kind who can take a light comic format and run with it.

The plot is straightforward. Urban twentysomething woman seemingly inexplicably leaves her job to take au pair job in rural setting for wealthy family with disabled son. Disaster ensues.

The thing that makes this a worthwhile read is that one has the sense that Ms. Cusk knows she has a few points to make, but is far too gifted to stop in the middle of this bit of cotton candy to belabor the reader with long-winded condescension to her characters or to the reader. We don't mind that we have visited this landscape a time or two before, because Ms. Cusk is such a talented tour guide we see new wrinkles in the dilemmae that our previous tour guides have overlooked.

A good read.

This was a dull read that I had to force myself to finish. The plot wanders aimlessly and is hard to follow. Mnay of the other continuations are better than this so I would recommend saving your money.

Even casual readers of Jane Austen understand that all her writing exists within a certain range. All her novels contain some variation of certain plot elements - the hero, the female rival(s) for the hero's affections, the decoy hero, the wouldn't-marry-him-even-if-he-was/even-though-he-is-worth-10,000-a-year anti-hero. Austen's genious was not in original plotting, but in her use of this formula to explore character, human nature and society. The opening chapters of _Charlotte_, those penned by our beloved authoress, set up all these elements brilliantly. Unfortunately, when Julia Barrett takes over the narrative, we find no social commentary (forgiveable perhaps since Ms. Barrett does not live in the society described), but more importantly, a plot which ambles about as non-sensically as a drunk who has lost his sense of direction. The heroine spends most of her time outside the hero's company, and a considerable time outside of Sanditon and away from most of the characters introduced. The characters clearly intended by Austen as rivals disappear from the pages between their introduction and their marriages, approximately 90% of the story. I can hardly critize Ms. Barrett for not writing in Austen's style or with Austen's formula. I only expect such deviations to be done well, in a manner that is internally consistent with the characters introduced, which _Charlotte_ is not.

I truly enjoyed this novel, as much as I did its predecessors "Presumption" and "The Third Sister", I think, though each of the three had its own individual, special delights. Though by no means an expert myself in Jane Austen or late 18th Century England, it seemed to me that "Jane Austen's Charlotte" like the two others, did indeed "engage and entice" back into that world, and I believe they kept to the "great lady's" own standards of wit, warmth, and intelligence.

I think the aspect of these novels, and most recently "Charlotte", that impresses me the most is the prodigious imagination required of a writer in today's world to imagine and bring to life these very real-seeming characters in an age not like ours at all in so many ways, especially in language. Julia Barrett definitely has a "felicity" with language much like the "great lady". I loved the turns of phrases, the chapter beginnings, the extremely insightful observations on human nature, both its strengths and foibles, and above all, the way she, like her wonderful predecessor, makes the characters individualistic and memorable without a lot of physical description or observation.

And, the satirical asides and situations in "Charlotte" seem to have more contemporary resonances than in the previous novels or even in Jane's. I was constantly smiling and even laughing out loud at Lady Denham and Mr. Parker and how they got caught up in the seashore health fads and get-rich-quick enthusiasms of the "new day" dawning in England in the early 1800s. If they could only see the modern world mania for "development" and dubious investments as well as today's corruption and avarice gone wild almost everywhere.

Like Jane Austen, Ms. Barrett brought the story to a close most satisfactorily with the heroine getting her fairly predictable education in life and a fine, upstanding husband to boot, and with little collateral damage to those relatives and loved ones least guilty of the shenanigans that brought Sanditon to near ruin. Barrett really did open up "Charlotte" to the rest of the world, hinted at in her two previous works as well by the "great lady" herself in her later novels, but she also somehow maintained the high level of wit and charm and intelligence that are so enjoyable in her mentor. So, kudos and many thank yous for another very enjoyable visit to Jane Austen land. As with a few other books I've really enjoyed, I'm sure I'll take them down in a couple of years to re-read. And, I'll definitely recommend them to whomever I run into who seems capable of enjoyment of such a high order. To those who think no one should "sully" Jane Austen's memory or tread on her legacy, I say nonsense and challenge them to give Julia Barrett a try. Jane Austen has indeed a worthy successor these days. I eagerly await an addition to the canon.

This book had marvelous potential, but the author somehow failed to produce. The basic story is one of a barbarian named Tagart, whose tribe is annihilated by a group of "civilized" farmers. In the background lurks a more advanced civilization known as the Flint Lords.

The barbarian vs. society angle is well written (and rather gruesome), worthy of any Conan story. However, the author does not give the reader the feel of his unique setting. The story could be set in Neolithic Britain or Hyperboria, with no noticeable changes to the story.