To me, what made these books believable (and acceptable) Austen continuations was that they were written as a collection of letters. It wasn't as if Ms. Dawkins were trying to step into Jane Austen's shoes and write in exactly the same style to follow these beloved characters. Instead, the letters move the story more into Lizzy's point of view since all of the letters are written by her. You don't get as much of a view of the whole story because of this singular viewpoint, but you get a good idea of what the other characters may have said to Lizzy in her replies to their correspondence.

Of the two volumes, I ended up liking this second volume the most. The events discussed in the letters were more dramatic and life-changing, and I found myself blinking back tears at one particularly heartbreaking time in Lizzie's life. I won't go into more detail than that, since I think part of the charm of reading these books was in not knowing how the characters' lives would turn out.

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