Jane Austen's Mansfield Park famously narrates the story of poor little Fanny Price sent to live with her mother's grander sisters - the Ward family. Written almost two centuries later, Joan Aiken's powerful sequel reverses the story and introduces us to The Youngest Miss Ward, Hatty, sent to fend for herself with the poor relations.

Although creative, charismatic and witty, Hatty Ward lacks the beauty that her older sisters inherited and is left without a dowry to care for their ill mother once her sisters are married off. Sent to Portsmouth to live with her rumbustious uncle and cousins, Hatty turns her creative flair to poetry and believes she must become a governess, that is until handsome Lord Camber passes through town . . .

With imagination and authenticity Joan Aiken captures the customs and language of Austen's England in this one of a kind sequel, revealing a subversive and unique heroine.