Mary Bennet was certainly not Jane Austen’s most popular character, but I find I relate to her far more than I ever related to Elizabeth. The bookish, quiet, plain girl, awkward in company, and overlooked when anyone else was in the room. Yep, definitely could relate there.

Most Austenesque fiction centers around Elizabeth romance with Darcy which has nearly universal appeal. But something in me needed to see Mary find the same sort of love and devotion for being exactly who and what she was.

That’s why I wrote A Less Agreeable Man. And that’s why to this day, I still love the story and made it into an audiobook. Melissa Durbin’s narration only made me love it more.

If you’re looking for an engrossing summer read, give this one a try. You won’t regret it.

Dull, plain and practical, Mary Bennet was the girl men always overlooked. Nobody thought she’d garner a second glance, much less a husband. But she did, and now she’s grateful to be engaged to Mr. Michaels, the steady, even tempered steward of Rosings Park. By all appearances, they are made for each other, serious, hard-working, and boring.

Michaels finds managing Rosings Park relatively straight forward, but he desperately needs a helpmeet like Mary, able to manage his employers: the once proud Lady Catherine de Bourgh who is descending into madness and her currently proud nephew and heir, Colonel Fitzwilliam, whose extravagant lifestyle has left him ill-equipped for economy and privation.

Colonel Fitzwilliam had faced cannon fire and sabers, taken a musket ball to the shoulder and another to the thigh, stood against Napoleon and lived to tell of it, but barking out orders and the point of his sword aren’t helping him save Rosings Park from financial ruin. Something must change quickly if he wants to salvage any of his inheritance. He needs help, but Michaels is tedious and Michaels’ fiancée, the opinionated Mary Bennet, is stubborn and not to be borne. 

Apparently, quiet was not the same thing as meek, and reserved did not mean mild. The audacity of the woman, lecturing him on how he should manage his barmy aunt. The fact that she is usually right doesn’t help. Miss Bennet gets under his skin, growing worse by the day until he finds it very difficult to remember that she’s engaged to another man.  

Can order be restored to Rosings Park or will Lady Catherine’s madness ruin them all?