MARIANNE

In this elegant and expansive sequel to Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (1811), McVeigh revisits Austen’s moral world with deft humor and surprising emotional gravity.

Two years after the death of Col. Brandon, Marianne Dashwood—once the embodiment of romantic impetuosity—has become a 20-year-old widow, uncertain of her future. In London, she finds herself drawn back into the orbit of high society. McVeigh sets the tone from the opening pages as a wary Lady Catherine de Bourgh coolly observes of Marianne, “Her air is not unattractive…one sees a great many worse.” Such dry Austenian prose pervades the novel. Marianne’s journal entries alternate with omniscient narration, giving readers access to a protagonist still marked by passion but tempered by loss. At concerts, teas, and country houses, she navigates encounters with old acquaintances—some welcome, others far less so—and meets new figures, among them the quick-witted, morally ambiguous Henry Crawford of Mansfield Park fame. Their exchanges, full of intellectual play and emotional charge, capture the delicate balance between propriety and longing. McVeigh resurrects not only Marianne’s sensibility but also the moral texture of Austen’s entire world. John Willoughby, flattered by “the coolness of Marianne’s reception,” convinces himself that his abandonment of her had been “far from uncommon,” yet his self-justification only deepens the portrait of moral blindness that Austen once sketched in miniature. When Marianne encounters him again later, McVeigh’s command of tension is exquisite. The encounter unfolds amid music, light, and memory, until “it felt strangely natural to lean upon Willoughby’s arm…’tis dangerous work to walk in the half-light with your first love, with time and all the dead between you.” The narrative scope broadens with the inclusion of other Austen characters, yet these crossings feel organic, not contrived. Mary Crawford’s reappearance provides an unexpected and deeply moving counterpoint: “My hope for this world is over, indeed,” she says quietly, “but I have every hope, my friend, for the world that is still to come.” It’s one of the novel’s most striking lines—simple, graceful, and devastating.

A deeply felt and pitch-perfect continuation that lets its title character finally come into her own.