Rating: 4.5 Stars

Jane Austen, cats, magic and witches – it is impossible not to love Melinda Taub’s delightful new novel, The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch.

Lydia Bennet is different from her older sisters. She is not as beautiful as elder sister Jane or as intelligent as Elizabeth nor is she like her studious sibling Mary, who craves solitude and likes nothing more than shutting everyone out by losing herself in her books. Lydia is wild, craves constant attention and wants to see the world far from the stifling confines of Meryton. Of course, Lydia also has a secret. A secret that distinguishes her from all of her sisters: she’s a witch!

As the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, Lydia possess magical powers and she must learn to harness her gifts. However, that proves to be far easier than done. With her favorite younger sister Kitty by her side (who is really a barn cat!), Lydia finds herself navigating life and high society while trying her utmost to learn how to use her powers. Of course, Wickham doesn’t help, but then what can one expect from a demon? And then there’s Darcy who is so buttoned-up and uptight about etiquette, Lydia is sure he’d blow a gasket if he found out that he married into a family where one the daughters is a witch!

Will Lydia’s powers prove to be more trouble than they are worth? Will they help her find the happiness she seeks? Or is it all going to end in tears?

Witty, irreverent and magical, I devoured Melinda Taub’s enchanting retelling of Jane Austen’s beloved classic told from the perspective of the younger Bennet sister. The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch is an uproarious, enthralling and wholly mesmerizing tale that kept me enthralled from beginning to end.

Melinda Taub brilliantly captures all the charm and humor of Pride and Prejudice and infuses The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet with plenty of hi-jinks, mischief, romance and intrigue to keep readers glued to the pages of her book.

Janeites and readers new to Austen alike will fall under the spell of Melinda Taub’s outstanding tale, The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch.

This book gives all the classical Pride and Prejudice feel but with a witchy turn!

This story takes place after Lizzy and Darcy are married, and shows what Lydia’s life is REALLY like.

I loved the little details like Kitty being a cat, and magic in the family.

A really fun “spooky season” read with all the regency vibes.

Not my cup of tea

I DNF'd at 8% and it was like pulling teeth to get that far. So many words were used to say nothing. Pages and pages of words that didn't have anything to do with the plot, character development, or world building. Just mental ramblings. The beginning of Pride and Prejudice doesn't even enter the story until chapter ... seven? Not sure I remember because I was bored with all the other nothing that happened.

I'm sure this is the perfect book for diehard fans of P&P retellings. I just didn't find Lydia interesting enough, even as a witch.

I loved this witchy retelling of Pride and Prejudice! It was the perfect start to Halloween season for me.

I read another review where someone complained that it is 400 pages long. I read it on Kindle where it’s harder to track length, but it honestly didn’t feel that long. Where P&P can feel like all uptight manners and social graces, this definitely felt more modern and accessible. I loved the magical world-building and the use of all of the characters. If you fall in the Venn Diagram of a P&P fan who enjoys a witchy book, this is the book for you!

Thank you to the publisher - I received a complimentary eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet , Witch is the perfect Autumn read. Melinda Taub has created a real treat for lovers of re imagined classics especially fans of Jane Austen. I can't wait to pick up a physical copy and my only compliant is that i will need to order one in as sadly my near by Bam did not have any copies.

"The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch" is a vividly imagined, wholly original take on the Jane Austen classic. Ms Taub does an amazing job of building a new world within the familiar environs of Meryton and Regency England, merging the two seamlessly with complete believability. The story follows Lydia Bennet, the youngest, and easily the most scandalous Bennet sister, who, by the way, also happens to be a witch! This is the answer to all the questions you may have had about what happened to Lydia when she went off to Brighton with the Forsters, and got herself married to that reprobate George Wickham!

An easy recommendation for anyone who loves Pride and Prejudice, but still accessible for those who are unfamiliar with the original story.

"The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch" is a very well-written, wildly imaginative, and charming story written by Melinda Taub. It is so much fun! The author has done great work presenting us with the locations and characters we know and love (or love to dislike— I'm looking at you Mr. Wickham), along with magical hijinks and mayhem aplenty! It was very enjoyable to see our favorite characters in this new and original magical setting. The speed of the plot is perfect, the author's writing style is smooth and sparkling with wit, humor, and heart, and the story was always captivating and never dull. I really enjoyed seeing the Bennet family through Lydia's eyes and seeing how she interacts with the people around her. I loved reading Wickham's letter to Lydia! The strong friendship between Lydia and her sister Kitty was so sweet to read about and is one of many things I enjoyed most about this story. This a whimsical, magical, and original story! This is a book you do not want to miss out on. I very highly recommend it! 5 stars

Thank you very much to Austenprose PR, author Melinda Taub, Grand Central Publishing, and NetGalley for providing me with the wonderful opportunity of being a part of this book tour and for providing me with a digital and physical copy to read and review honestly.

I'm not someone who is as versed in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE as some other people may be, but I know enough and have seen enough adaptations to know that Lydia is supposed to be obnoxious and superficial. So of course I found my interests piqued when I saw that Melinda Taub had written THE SCANDALOUS CONFESSIONS OF LYDIA BENNET, WITCH, as the idea of reimagining Lydia as a witch was just SO clever. And it was a great book to read while ushering in the Halloween season. I really liked the due diligence that Taub did to fit her ideas and interpretations into the original text, making sure that her plot lines and circumstances fit into the original story without making them feel forced in or silly. I also liked seeing Lydia Bennet get a little more complexity beyond what Austen gave her, with her motivations being grey but in many ways relatable. I'm sure there were lots of nods to Austen's works in the book that I didn't catch because I'm not super familiar with all of her books, but the ones I did catch were fun. And the witch stuff! OH THE WITCH STUFF! I love anything witchy and I loved the systems that Taub created for this story, and seeing Lydia practice magic and deal with demons (like her love interest(?), Wickham. Perfect that he's a demon! But even he is given a bit more to to than being the rakish cad we are familiar with).

THE SCANDALOUS CONFESSIONS OF LYDIA BENNET, WITCH is very fun. I really enjoyed it.

"However, I was born with greater gifts than one silly girl can use up in a lifetime."

I absolutely loved the combination of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice juxtaposed with seventh daughter witch old wives' tale.

Lydia is the perfect choice for unreliable narrator. And I feel like we've seen retellings from Lizzy and Jane's points of view often enough. It's time for a spooky Lydia story!

"It is one of the nicer things about Miss Lydia Bennett, I think, that she is incapable of holding a grudge."

Overall, this is a darkly humorous witchy delight. Perfect for October. Magic abounds, not just in Lydia but also other surprising characters! Ooo, and wait til you meet this Wickham!

Well written, with just enough of Austen's style and Bridgerton drama to make fans thoroughly pleased.

(A bit of a content warning: Mrs. Bennett is typified in this retelling as suffering from multiple miscarriages.)

Pride and Prejudice is my hands-down favorite book, and I've reread it more times than I can count. So this book was a no-brainer for me! I'm very grateful to Netgalley and the publisher for sharing an ARC of this book.

Though I struggled with the beginning of this book, I think the author did an exceptional job of capturing Austen's characters and putting an intriguing twist behind my favorite story. Lydia remains one of my least favorite characters in the original novel, but this retelling shows some depth to her character. Though she is flawed, Taub makes Lydia multi-dimensional and ultimately more interesting all around.

The time jumps at the beginning were a challenge, which dropped my overall rating. I think Austen lovers will have an easier time of this versus the everyday reader.

It's no secret that I'm a massive Pride & Prejudice fan, but that I am not a purist – I enjoy dabbling in spin-off works and reimaginings, and am not at all opposed to checking out what's available on Ao3 every now and again (iykyk). And though I've always been more of a Lizzy than a Lydia, when I saw the title, "The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch," I was all in, pretty much immediately.

And I'm very pleased to say that the book is a damn good time. In this witchy take on Pride & Prejudice, Lydia is a young, but powerful witch who is recounting what happened the summer of her "ruin," Kitty is her familiar (an actual cat! But glamoured to be a girl!), Wickham is the son of a demon who ate the actual George Wickham's soul and now inhabits the rake's body, and the events of Brighton are a whole magically dramatic affair.

It's a fun and creative read that revels in the idea that there might be more to Lydia Bennet than just a silly, reckless, hormonal teenager (though she is still those things!), that perhaps there's more to her relationship with Wickham, and that beneath all the vanity, frivolity, and flirtation she wears as armor, she's really a sweet, caring young woman who is far more understanding and tolerant than most people around her.

In addition, the (mostly) original characters that Melinda Taub introduces to the story are extremely well-drawn – the story of Maria Lambe (yes, the one from Sanditon!) brings necessary weight and character development to the book, the villain(s!) both chew the scenery and hoodwink you, and Lydia's friend group is filled with nuanced characters you'll feel fondness for despite (because of?) their flaws.

Overall, I thought this was a very well-done book that both injects new life into extremely well-known characters and continually surprises the reader – even when you think you know exactly where it's going. I had a great time with this one, and have a feeling I'll think of Lydia Bennet differently from here on out.

I'm not sure why I signed up for this Austen fanfic as I generally don't have high opinions of retellings like this. But I must admit that I'm glad that I did.

The narration is written in a whimsical epistolary-style that jolts sloppily between retelling parts of Pride & Prejudice to a whole separate plot that keeps me from being fully hooked into the story. If you like cheeky prose, however, these sins may be easily forgiven.

Taub takes some creative liberties with the Austen characters that feel very akin to a child playing with dolls, but damn it all I still had a fun time. Lydia is an annoying character (both in the source material and in this book), but she's mostly annoying because despite it all, I still found her endearing. By the end of it all, I felt the story felt very worth my initial misgivings.

This was such a fun, clever, and witchy read! I find Pride & Prejudice retellings to be so much fun and this one did not disappoint. It spins a deeper, more profound story for Lydia and gives a fresh face to some of Austen's barely mentioned characters. I enjoyed the growth that Lydia shows throughout the book and how it shows her to be so much more than just the "silly sister who makes of fool of herself and her family".

This historical fantasy is such a fun way to delve more into the Jane Austen universe and I really enjoyed it!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Melinda Taub for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch coming out October 3, 2023. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I really loved Still Star-Crossed by this author so I wanted to check this one out. This isn’t quite what I was expecting. I’m obsessed with Jane Austen and I love books about witches, so I thought this would be the perfect combination. I really liked it. The writing was really great. I just felt it was a bit dry and long. I think there was a lot of repetition of dialogue and themes. I thought Lydia would be a little more likable. I think the timeline of events was also a little confusing for me. At times she was with Wickham and at times she was Miss Bennet. The first half of the book was a lot more interesting than the second half to me.

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys Pride and Prejudice variations!

WOW. This is probably the top 5-star book for me this year and I read a lot of books.

The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch was well written and captivating. This paints a picture that is unlike Jane Austen's Lydia Bennet, yet somehow it entwines the story perfectly.

This magical telling actually lets me relate to Lydia, who let's be honest, comes across as almost the villain. In P & P she is selfish, and unthinking. This story paints her as so much more and Kitty, too.

I found myself turning page after page, not knowing where it was going and where it turned out was outside of what I might have guessed. This tale was full of imagination and spirit. There may be even a bit of goodwill for Wickham too in the end.

This magical side of a favorite story was brought to life and I enjoyed every minute. I found myself waiting with bated breath for the next twist to drop. This was twisty and turny and perfectly crafted. Just in time for spooky season.

I received and early copy from the publisher through NetGalley and this is my honest review.

As a major fan of Jane Austen, I was concerned that this book would read at best like fanfiction or at worst like a spin off of certain supernatural creature filled Austen remakes that shall not be named. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Melinda Taub does a phenomenal job of capturing Lydia Bennet's voice in a way that feels simultaneously true to the source material and fresh. Not only that, Lydia is shown to have a lot more autonomy than it may seem in the original book. Through the journey of learning about her magic and discovering that the magical community of Britain is a chaotic place, Lydia shows a lot of self-awareness and overall proves herself to be loyal, funny, and brave, not at all the brat that I for one always thought she was. The strength of this novel is in it's characters and I enjoyed seeing Lydia interact with Kitty, Aunt Phillips, Denny and even Wickham. I was also thoroughly surprised by the budding romance between Lydia and Wickham, who is maybe not so wicked as we were lead to believe. I would recommend this book for fans of Austen who also love fantasy and enemies-to-lovers.

A fun idea for a P&P retelling, but I sadly couldn’t get on board with the long-winded, and frankly, boring writing style. I also couldn’t see what direction this was going. I might eventually give this another try.

This is a delightful book, Austen for those who want another slant on the story of the Bennett family -- this one comes through the lively Lydia's eyes, and is a deeply satisfying, hilarious, and at times moving story of the youngest daughter.

Pride and Prejudice but from Lydia’a point of view- and oh yeah, Lydia is a witch and none of her sisters know. And one of her sisters is actually a cat, I truly enjoyed this expansion of the pride and prejudice “universe” it was so fun and true to the original characters while also being so new and a breath of fresh air. The beginning was a little confusing figuring out the time jumps but once you figured it out, it really was so enjoyable. Also, I LOVE georgianna darcy. she’s literally the most likable of them all and I just love her for it.

this really just was a love story about sisterhood, magic, and of course pride and prejudice. really a very cozy read that I truly think people will enjoy.

I'm not going to lie, as someone who has loved the 2005 remake of Pride & Prejudice since it was in theaters (yes, I know it's not the MOST faithful), I have never particularly liked Lydia Bennet and had no intentions of reading this book. But a colleague recommended it to me, and insisted I give it a try - bribing me with the hilarious fact that Kitty Bennet is, in fact, an actual cat in this version. And, what fun it proved to be. This epistolary account, follows the adventures of Lydia and Kitty as they get sucked into various nefarious goings on in the witchy underground, go on magical adventures, and fall in love, all while trying to navigate the social niceties of Meryton and Brighton. Taub does a beautiful job with this retelling, gently reshaping the world, but keeping all the original architecture and ethos of the P&P story we know and love. Perhaps it's greatest magic, though, is taking a character I didn't care for, and giving her voice to become someone I was delighted by and rooted for.