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My Dearest Miss Fairfax: What Jane Austen's Emma didn't know by [Jeanette Watts]

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Jeanette A Watts

My Dearest Miss Fairfax: What Jane Austen's Emma didn't know Kindle Edition

by Jeanette Watts (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 65 ratings

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For lovers of Lucy Marin and L.L. Diamond, a new Regency-set historical fiction novel following a lesser-known character from one of history’s favorite female authors. Winner of the 2023 Firebird Award! Second Place for BOTH Romance AND Chick-Lit!

Miss Jane Fairfax has spent her life—though poor and expecting the eventuality of a governess position—by the side of a Colonel’s daughter, living beyond the means she was born into. When she meets the enigmatic and handsome Frank Churchill in Weymouth, she can’t help but fall for him. It's love at first sight.

Mr Frank Churchill, the heir to his aunt’s fortune and dependent on her goodwill, knows that he cannot marry without Mrs Churchill’s permission. Desperate to marry Jane, he proposes not only marriage but a plan to hide their engagement until his aunt approves of the match. The couple travel separately to their same small hometown of Highbury, where Jane’s ridiculous aunt and the notorious Emma Woodhouse threaten the understanding between them, and as the months pass by, Jane worries that they will be secretly engaged forever, with no happy ending in sight.

As their lies and deceits pile up, can their love survive the social pressures that threaten to tear them apart?

Print length

322 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publication date

March 14, 2022
File size

2354 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

At last! Finally, we get to read the real inside story of Miss Jane Fairfax and Mr. Frank Churchill! Ms. Watts has written a superb, welcomed, believable story that reveals their true personalities and their opinions of everyone in Highbury. She has clearly explained the complicated background of their falling in love and secret engagement. The book is full of laughter, love, annoyance, and desperation; all the emotions of young love impatient to marry. I loved My Dearest Miss Fairfax!
-- Arlene S. Bice, author; editor of Jane Austen, an anthology of thoughts & opinions

Austen portrays Jane Fairfax as a worthy and slightly dull supporting character in a novel studded with leading actors. Jeanette Watts repositions her as the passionate and independent-minded heroine of her own story. Funny, wise, insightful - and remarkably gripping, given that we all know how things will turn out in the end - this is a gem of a book that will send readers back to Emma with quite a new perspective.
-- Joceline Bury, Jane Austen's Regency World

This tender, lightly-handled but moving story reveals Jane's perspective, on her romance with the exasperating Frank Churchill, but also her feelings towards Emma herself, which are not always positive! Other delights include her perspective on her dear but infuriating aunt Miss Bates, and on Mrs Elton. Always true to Jane Austen, but revealing the inner world of Miss Fairfax, this is not to be missed. Brava, Ms Watts!
-Harri Whilding, author of Out There In the World and Every Wand'ring Barque

Just like Miss Austen, Ms Watts fills the pages with love, complications, and impatient desperation. While pictured as a reticent woman in Emma, in this book Jane Fairfax comes forth as a passionate heroine with quite her own opinions of the residents of Highbury which lends to the same qualities that Miss Austen imbued in her characters - full of mirth, wit, quips, and the stylistic Regency-era style any Austen fan will recognize and enjoy. No doubt you will get a entirely new view of Jane in this lovely moving story! -The Historical Fiction Company

From the Author

Only upon digging deeply into the text of "Emma" to pry out every last bit of information about Jane Fairfax's engagement to Frank Churchill did I come to realize that Jane Austen had written something akin to a murder mystery...where the protagonist fails to solve the crime. The clues are sprinkled throughout the book. There are significant glances, there are unconscious revelations, there are easily-detectable lies. There are many times, for multiple characters, where actions speak louder than words. There are correct suppositions that are firmly ignored or denied.
I can only picture Miss Austen chuckling to herself as she wrote her brilliant manuscript: the tongue-in-cheek observations that only make sense once the secret is out are every bit as lightly cynical as her famous opening line of Pride and Prejudice. I like to think she would be chuckling while reading this tribute: while the Janes in Miss Austen's books tend to be perfect, idealized women, this Jane Fairfax tells the truth behind the facade. The true woman isn't perfect. But she's a whole lot more fun.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09TG5XMWX
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 14, 2022
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2354 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 322 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #911,687 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2,319 in Historical British Fiction
- #3,089 in Historical Regency Fiction
- #14,662 in Regency Historical Romance

Customer Reviews:
4.4 65 ratings

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Jeanette A Watts

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Jeanette Watts is a dance instructor, writer, seamstress, actress, and very, very poor housekeeper.

When she isn't writing historical fiction, she is working on a reproduction of historical clothing, she is teaching historical dances, or she is traveling and visiting historical sites. And wineries. Always make time to stop at the wineries.

Her new YouTube channel, "History is My Playground," is soon to also become a podcast with the same name.

Keep up with the various parts of Jeanette's brain at JeanetteWatts.squarespace.com

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

65 global ratings

5 star		68%
4 star		18%
3 star		3%
2 star		8%
1 star		4%

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Grady Harp

Shadowing Jane Austen - quite successfully!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 8, 2023

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Illinois author Jeanette Watts serves as a dance instructor, actress, and author. Her many genres of interest are evident in her books to date - the Scions of Pittsburgh series WEALTH & PRIVILEGE and BRAINS & BEAUTY, A WOMAN’S PERSUASION, JANE AUSTEN LIED TO ME, and MY DEAREST MISS FAIRFAX. Her keen eye and observation skills allow her to continue Jane Austen’s viewpoint of 18th century dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favorable social standing and economic security, allowing her to provide another insight into Austen’s characters.

Written in an accessible style, Watts opens her ‘second thoughts’ about EMMA with considerable flavor: ‘Jane Fairfax wished she could truly be a good person. Barring that, she settled for keeping quiet when she had nothing good to say. Which could be frequent. She did wonder, frequently, whether this was really a wise strategy on her part. It never seemed to fail; if there was going to be a party of any size more than three, the person most likely to chatter away at her with an insipid monologue was sure to seek her out and make her an auditory captive.’ With that lilting voice the truth behind Austen’s Emma is revealed: ‘Miss Jane Fairfax has spent her life—though poor and expecting the eventuality of a governess position—by the side of a Colonel’s daughter, living beyond the means she was born into. When she meets the enigmatic and handsome Frank Churchill in Weymouth, she can’t help but fall for him. It's love at first sight. Mr. Frank Churchill, the heir to his aunt’s fortune and dependent on her goodwill, knows that he cannot marry without Mrs. Churchill’s permission. Desperate to marry Jane, he proposes not only marriage but a plan to hide their engagement until his aunt approves of the match. The couple travel separately to their same small hometown of Highbury, where Jane’s ridiculous aunt and the notorious Emma Woodhouse threaten the understanding between them, and as the months pass by, Jane worries that they will be secretly engaged forever, with no happy ending in sight. As their lies and deceits pile up, can their love survive the social pressures that threaten to tear them apart?’

For the legion of Jane Austen fans, this book is a must. For those who appreciate historical fiction served with a sharp wit and near visual presentation, step aboard the carriage and enjoy! Highly recommended.

Helpful

MHTex

What was gentle Jane thinking of all that time?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 8, 2022

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I loved this Jane Fairfax. Confession time; Emma isn't my favorite Austen, although I have loved the movie adaptations. The BBC adaptation done in the 70's comes closest to canon in my opinion. Emma comes across as a real snob, and I thought so as I read it the first time. I haven't read very many Emma variations, but of the ones I have read, a big share of them seem to like making her more of a snob than ever....and that's too bad because she really does have some wonderful qualities. Reading Jane Austen's Emma, I had all sympathy for Jane Fairfax, yet I could not see how she could possibly love Frank. In Emma I couldn't stand Frank at all. In MDMF, we do see how Jane could love Frank, and I loved this Frank Churchill.

Watts doesn't make her Emma out to be all bad, or Jane all good. In MDMF Jane shows up in Highbury at a really emotional time of her life. So Emma's, along with everyone else's small town attitudes, foibles, and gossipy habits grates on Jane Fairfax's nerves in the extreme. She's secretly, yet joyously engaged thinking it will just be a matter of weeks before she and Frank can announce their engagement. She's also utterly like a fish out of water. Leaving the richly intelligent, self-affirming, mutually loving world of the Campbells and her dearest friend and sister, now married and living in Ireland, she's thrown into an entirely different atmosphere. She sees everyone around her as petty, small minded and foolish. I think Watts may have experienced living in a very small town somewhere, because the gossip that is portrayed in her book is spot on for living in a tiny town. Everyone knows everyone's business...no...matter...what.

As weeks turn into months waiting for Mrs. Churchill's health to improve enough that Frank can get her permission to marry, Jane starts believing she will never be a part of that rich atmosphere again, never see her friends again, never marry Frank. Because she will be forced to sell herself into slavery. Not selling her body, but selling her mind. And as we read Jane's views and opinions, if we learned anything of her we know how much she valued her mind.

It's a very tough read in parts, because we read of Jane's deteriorating opinion of the townspeople of Highbury, we read of Frank's ratcheting up of his shenanigans with Emma in order to continue the false cover of being attracted to her and not suspicious of his true reasons for visiting Highbury so often. Other readers do not like Jane's assessment of the townspeople, but there is no one she can trust. Her secret would not last for two minutes if she shared with anyone there. She also misinterprets Mr. Knightly's frowning concern and discernment as an attraction for her, which is very awkward. I don't believe Mr. Knightly was attracted to her, merely concerned as he was quietly observant of her and Frank. As you watch those interchanges, you can see how she could mistake his conversations.

We were never meant to like Mrs. Elton, but I never wanted to clobber that woman so badly in my life while reading this story. I wanted Jane to just tell her to shut up about the wonderful governess position she found for her. In this book Jane has to repeat her instructions to Mrs. E. multiple times not to write any inquiries regarding governess positions--repeatedly! I would never have had the patience. For which Jane feared any reaction of frustrated impatience would open the floodgate of her horrible thoughts and opinions on Mrs. E. and everyone else.

As things come to a crisis when more and more pressure is heaped on her, and an argument leads to her falling ill thinking their engagement is over I cried buckets. The ending is emotional, dramatic, and very romantic. We don't get an epilogue, but we know they get their HEA. That's because the beginning of the story convinced me how truly in love Jane and Frank were.

If you're a dyed-in-the-wool Emma fan, you might find this not your cup of tea. If you appreciate variations and are willing to try all JAFF sub-genres, I highly recommend this.

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Top reviews from other countries

Vivvie

If that was supposed to be a side story to Jane Austen Emma, it failed.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 24, 2022

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I generally like Jane. She despite modern views is a very strong person. Who these days try and keep peace by not getting angry so quickly and Jane had reasons galore to be angry or frustrated. She has self control which I admire in Austen's Jane Fairfax. yet in this book she was a selfish brat and as one other reviewer said she deserved Frank.
I could clearly see that the author neither liked Emma or Mr Knightley. I know Emma has her faults and so has Mr Knightley, we are all humans and so is Jane but I did not like her in this story. Jane hates the gossip in Highbury and she gossips about them in her letters to Frank!
I'm so glad that after this book I read another book about Jane and Frank and that has given me a better inside in both utterly different characters. Their relationship was based on love and its immaturity but it worked so well because it was realistic. Retellings, I think don't make it better if we totally reverse the roles and turn a side character into a brat.
There are a couple of good passages which I liked. One was the scene before Frank appeared at the strawberry picking. I could definitely understand his frustration.

HW

A different perspective

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 3, 2022

Verified Purchase

"Emma" from Jane Fairfax's point of view. The author paints a convincing picture of the cool, intelligent, but poor and oppressed Miss Fairfax. I was glad to find Jane dislikes Emma as much as Miss Woodhouse dislikes her, and for reciprocal reasons. Interesting to see Jane presented as more cultured, and probably intelligent than her nemesis! But a little lacking in heart maybe? Frank Churchill is presented a little better than in the original, or rather, Jane forgives him more than I'd like her to. Worth the read and many sparkling moments. Well done Ms Watts!

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