Sanditon on Reflection

“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.” So wrote Jane Austen in 1803.

Jane Austen began her last novel, Sanditon, in 1817 and wrote twelve chapters before putting it aside. With her death the same year, she never finished it.

Sanditon on Reflection is a regency era romance that tells the rest of the story as seen through the eyes of Jane Austen’s heroine, Charlotte Heywood. This telling of Charlotte’s story begins before Jane Austen’s does in 1812 on a farm in the English village of Willingden near the south coast of England.

She lives there with very limited access to the rest of the world, except through her books and dreams until, one day in 1818, a happenstance on a ”very rough Lane” gains her a sojourn away from her village to Sanditon, a fishing village with aspirations of becoming a fashionable seaside resort.

Hosted by Tom Parker, the eccentric mastermind behind the scheme, and his wife, Charlotte finds herself right in the heart of Sanditon society, which includes Tom’s brother Sidney Parker, “of about seven or eight and twenty” and “very good-looking.” But is he what he seems and can she trust her instincts and her heart in this new world?

The hazards of love and an intriguing mystery test Charlotte’s character and conviction in ways she would never have imagined. That secret and the choices she must make in a Regency world filled with intrigue, avarice and obsession will shake Charlotte to the core as she faces challenges to know herself and her past while she looks to find love and that all important HEA.

“I had the pleasure of working as a copy-editor on the Italian edition of DB Thomas’s Sanditon on Reflection for Vintage Editore, Bari, and was utterly charmed. Not all Jane Austen variations manage to imitate her distinctive voice, but this modern author, though living on another continent, succeeds. DB Thomas does not do what most variation authors do and pick up where Jane Austen stopped, but gives the attractive heroine Charlotte Heywood a convincing backstory that plants the seeds of an intriguing mystery. The reader is immersed into the world of a young woman who must find friendship where she can, amongst the petty snobberies and carping of a Regency watering hole with aspirations above its background. Here are early glimmers of an entrepreneurialism that was to characterize the Victorian age. And here too is a love story, a true ‘comedy of errors’ that is a hallmark of Austen’s style, with just the right hint of darkness in the background; there is he who loves and he who would exploit. Whom can Charlotte trust?”

Katherine Mezzacappa (as Katie Hutton, author of The Gypsy Bride, The Gypsy’s Daughter and Annie of Ainsworth’s Mill), September 2022.

Sanditon on Reflection
by D B Thomas

Romance – Historical
326 Pages
Reviewed on 07/05/2023
Reviewed by Edith Wairimu for Readers’ Favorite

Sanditon on Reflection is D B Thomas’s impressive continuation of Jane Austen’s 1817 novel, Sanditon. This magnificent story is set in Regency-era England and chronicles the life of Charlotte Heywood, a young woman from a small village who hopes to explore more of the world. By chance, she is offered an opportunity to work as an assistant to Tom Parker, a man building a sea spa town in Sanditon, and as a governess for his children. Not long after her arrival, Charlotte falls in love with the fishing village’s beautiful landscape and breathtaking beach. She forms close friendships and is especially drawn to Tom’s brother, Sidney. As Charlotte navigates her new life, she learns that not everyone is her friend. Her experiences give her a new perspective and she discovers the truth concerning a long-held family secret.

Thomas deftly builds unforgettable characters from the foundation laid in Austen’s unfinished work. Throughout the novel, I remained immersed in Charlotte’s fascinating new life and the stories of the characters she encounters. Charlotte and Sidney’s love story is intriguing. It beautifully underscores the values of hope, loyalty, and love. Lush descriptions of Sanditon’s splendid sceneries bring the setting to life and descriptions of everyday activities and cultural aspects of the Regency era add realism to the story. A captivating mystery is included which adds more intrigue to this delightful novel. All the book’s elements are expertly intertwined and tied together in the end. Sanditon on Reflection by D B Thomas is a must-read for fans of Jane Austen’s books. It is a delightful continuation of the original novel that readers will love.