When Mr. Ford, a perfectly well-behaved gentleman while he was alive, rises from his casket at his own funeral, Mr. Bennett realizes two things: the first, that the dreadfuls are back, the second that training his daughters in the martial arts is way overdue.

His not very bright wife disagrees. Dreadfuls or no dreadfuls, her daughters are ladies and ladies do not go around the countryside brandishing swords and decapitating unmentionables. Not even if their father is a member of the Order, who fought in the first war against the dreadfuls these twenty years past, and swore to pass his knowledge to his children.

When Mrs. Goswick, who is organizing the ball where Elizabeth was going to come out, bans the Bennett sisters from attending after seeing them in action. Mrs. Bennett's fears seem confirmed: Her daughters will never catch a good husband.

Meanwhile, the girls are busy training with Mr. Hawksworth, the handsome Master the Order has sent, fighting the dreadfuls and, in the case of Jane, discouraging a rich but not so enchanting admirer from getting too close. On her part Elizabeth finds herself attracted both to the Master and to Mr. Keckilpenny, the physician intent on capturing one of the dreadfuls to communicate with him: an approach to solving the upcoming battle which Elizabeth finds quite unlikely to succeed.

Fittingly enough for a Jane Austen inspired novel, the final confrontation takes place during the ball as the dreadfuls attack en masse, putting Mr. Bennett's final plan, and the abilities of the Bennett sisters, to the test. A new incursion into the world of Pride and Prejudice, which takes place four years before the events in the original Jane Austen story, Dawn of the Dreadfuls is an entertaining parody best enjoyed if you don't bring your head to the reading, figuratively speaking, of course.

Although marketed as a prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Dawn of the Dreadfuls is, in fact, written by a different author.