Well executed but entirely miserable story with an unexpected (and not quite believable) happy ending. I wouldn't read this again. ( )

Während die Französische Revolution aufdämmert, durchbricht Hatty die Konventionen und meistert ihr Schicksal als moderne, unabhängige Frau. Hatty Ward, die Gedichte schreibt, verfügt über ebensoviel Gefühl wie Verstand. Gewinnt sie trotz mangelnder Mitgift das Herz von Lord Camber? Eine höchst atmosphärische Darstellung eines Frauenschicksales und eine ergreifende Liebesgeschichte.

For a brief time as we meet the 4th Ward sister, ones feels that Austen may indeed have mentioned in passing just such a heroine. Yet as the tome continues on, we find that Aiken has done us little service in adding color to the canon.

We eventually find characterizations that are not humorous to laugh at, as so much of Austen has, but characterizations that we do not admire, and further find that our heroine struggles in vain so much of the time that she has little for admiration as well. Finally when she shows spirit in her nature, instead of letting calamity continue to beset her, the resolution rushes together and those carefully laid down layers of depth and complexity are nullified.

So much could be better here. And Spoilers----

for this one-The Duke's Heir that acts anything but, wanting to even try to be an indentured servant just so he can relate to such burdens, a social experiment that Wilberforce would never have done and I submit that was a much better man than Aiken's Hero, who in the end, she guts with a quick twist and makes him much less of one than we are led to expect. Of course Austen never meant for her creatures to know those beyond the rank of baronet, for even the Earl of M----K remains off the page for but a mention in Pride and Prejudice.

Aiken worked to include to high a star for her Austenesque Heroine and had to crash her back to earth after an entire book of trying to give us hope for a romance. Then, at the end, in the very last paragraphs she decided that all is not linked to the Austen saga as this Ward sister has fallen even further than Fanny Price's mother and shall be erased from all knowledge, only in the last line are we informed, 'she died young.'

So this is a never again. That only a completist I feel would want to add to their knowledge. The character of Harriet we learn to like, and she finds her place in the world, but she takes perhaps her greatest disappointment too stoically for a Romance, and then the instances of a sub plot over fortunes are bestowed in an epilogue that then are proved pointless. Even Fanny Price has her happy ending. Her Aunt it appears under the penmanship of Ms Aiken, does not. ( )

Poor Hatty Ward. She has relatives who love her, but they can't save her from relatives (and others) who hate her. What romance is in here is subtle. There are a lot more marriages of convenience being made. I suppose the fates of the persons nastiest to Hatty could be considered just desserts. At least Ms. Aiken didn't go for that old 'becomes a nun' fate for a nasty kinswoman where the heroine and her family are Protestants.

Agnes, one of the Ward sisters, hates Hatty for something that wouldn't have happened if Agnes had taken care of the matter herself. Lady Ursula's hatred might be rooted in jealousy. The twins' nurse hates Hatty because Hatty wants to better the twins' lives. Of the others who hate her, two do so because of their own flaws. The third hates her because she kept a promise and because of slander. An unwanted suitor's motive is revealed very late in the novel.

Torn from her home and sent to live with relatives, Hatty is making a place for herself (and a friend of the charming Lord Camber), when she's sent to a much worse situation. Again, Hatty strives to improve matters. Again, one of the inhabitants' cruelty undoes her efforts.

Things do eventually work out (I confess I didn't expect Hatty to marry whom she did, but he was definitely the best of the lot). I could have done without the last of the letters in the book. Hatty's poems are okay.

I think The Youngest Miss Ward is more like Jane Eyre without the great romance, or perhaps an older version of Burnett's A Little Princess without the fairy tale ending, than Jane Austen's work. (Granted, I haven't reread Mansfield Park because it bored me the first time. I just refreshed my memory with a synopsis.) This book didn't bore me at all. ( )

This purports to chronicle the hard-times of Harriet Ward, the fourth Ward sister; intimidated by Mrs. Norris, the narrator of Mansfield Park left her out. The woes of Fanny Price pale in comparison.

I would ignore the attempted connection to Jane Austen, which I view simply as a marketing ploy. The book has nothing like her wit and has little to do with Mansfield Park, except for background mentions of the doings of the older Ward sisters.

This is a historical novel, not a Regency romance, indeed there is very little romance. It belongs to the school of historical woe, finding the past harsh and cruel rather than glamorous. For my taste, it it carried rather to the point of melodrama, more like Dickens perhaps than Austen. It is possible that all of these things could have happened to one young girl in the space of about 8 years. Indeed, there are a number of real people whose seemingly undeserved and unrelenting bad luck make one question the existence of divine justice, but it doesn't necessarily make for an effective novel. Aiken does bring in some interesting complexity as the characters ponder the wisdom and ultimate consequences of unrelentingly idealistic behavior.

Oddly enough, although this book apparently starts in the final months of the American Revolution, none of the characters, not even those emigrating to Pennsylvania and Maryland, seem to notice this event. They aren't going to English colonies, they are going to the newly formed United States of America!

Not a bad novel, but not something to inspire me to read more Jane Aiken either. ( )