VBT# Sense and Sensibility A Latter-Day Novel - Rebecca H. Jamison

Review: Sense and Sensibility - Rebecca H. Jamison - August 2014

As I am such a huge fan of renditions and especially Austen's tales when I saw that Sense and Sensibility had been re-written I knew I had to read it . In Sense and Sensibility , we meet Elly and her older sister Maren. Their father has just died from Cancer and now their house is being taken from the bank as they are in debt and cannot cope with all the bills. With Maren, still depressed from her father's death and her mum looking after their autistic sister Grace and juggling jobs - Elly takes it on herself to find herself a job as a programmer. She turns to the last place she ever thought she would, but then again she is desperate - her ex-fiance's Jake's business. They write code for Issuing machines for Libraries. Jake first left her and was already dating someone else - the day after they broke off their engagement and then he stole the code that her father's company was working on before Jake put them out of business with his company- the competition. If that wasn't bad enough, Elly is sort-of falling for Ethan - Jake's new wife's younger brother. With no-one their guiding them from life and love , these two sisters will discover a journey of love that will take them on a ride from exes to miscommunications to being arrested and then even a fake death . Out of their experiences, will Elly and Maren finally discover a bright light at the end of their journey and re-discover what it is to find and live true happiness again especially after all the sadness life has caused them.

One thing but it didn't really bother me as I enjoyed the story was that I had expected this to have a more religious feel to it seeing that it was an LDS book but in terms of the story, it touched a tiny bit on religion but did not play a huge part so those readers who were worried that the LDS part would overpower the story, you don't have to worry.

Why I Chose Sense and Sensibility

By Rebecca H. Jamison

Ever since I re-told Persuasion in 2012, I’d wanted to write my own version of Sense and Sensibility. Yet it seemed to me that most of the situations in the book wouldn’t happen now. Most people no longer inherit a great house. Nor do most women depend upon their fathers and brothers for their support. In fact, many of the situations in the novel are very difficult to translate to modern day settings.

I spent a long time planning out how I could create a similar story to Sense and Sensiblity in current time that seemed natural but was also different enough that it wasn’t predictable. After much thought, I decided to substitute a family business for the great house. I also substituted an ex-boyfriend who ruined the business for the half-brother who refused to share the inheritance. Once I had these and some other details in place, I started writing.

Most people reading the first chapter of my novel won’t necessarily recognize that it’s a modern version of Sense and Sensibility. They will, however, experience the same emotions that they would feel while reading (or watching) Jane Austen’s masterpiece. Even though we live two hundred years after Jane Austen’s time, we still battle with economic challenges, feelings of depression, complicated love lives, and having to start over. Both books are about finding hope again after disappointment.

One of my goals in writing this novel was to learn to love writing again, so I wrote this book with selfish motives. I wrote the book I wanted to read. Not that I don’t hope readers will love it. I really do hope that. But I’ve learned that if I, the author, love my characters and their stories, the readers are more likely to love them too.