Title: A Darcy Christmas - A Holiday Tribute to Jane Austen
Author: Amanda Grange, Sharon Lathan and Carolyn Eberhart
Publisher: Sourcebooks
ISBN: 9781402243394
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My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Mr. Darcy's Christmas Carol by Carolyn Eberhart
My rating: 2 out 5 stars
The first story was based upon A Christmas Carol, with Darcy as Scrooge. In all honesty, it didn’t really make sense to me. When you visited Darcy’s past and present, there was no basis for the cause of his pride. His parents raised him well and Darcy associated with well-rounded people. His future was also possible but I find it very hard to believe Darcy would be so desperate that he would marry Caroline and abandon his sister. The last chapter just recounted from the final chapters from the original Pride and Prejudice. No originality to be found. Even for a novella, this story dragged on and on. This was a miserable read.
Christmas Present by Amanda Grange
My rating: 5 out 5 stars
This story takes place about a year or two after the original Pride and Prejudice, around Christmas time. This novella is majorly cute and I had to read to its conclusion in one sitting. It does not exactly have the same tone as Austen’s but as a continuation, I found it convincing. Darcy and Elizabeth is still a wonderful couple with a baby on the way. You can feel the great love they have for each other. The Bennet family and co. was still their usual self. A simple plot where there was no action or any dramas. But I found it did not need this since it would have distracted the reader from the intricacies of their unique family dynamic. With a well written dialogue, the story keeps you hook.
A Darcy Christmas by Sharon Lathan
My rating: 3.5 out 5 stars
The novella takes a span of 25-30 years of the Darcy’s Christmases. Don’t worry, it’s not long. The Christmases were the ones worth remembering for Darcy, like the births of his children and death that affected the family. The tone of the story, in my opinion, was more like a romance novel. Darcy and Elizabeth are an amorous couple but written in a way that it was suggested sexuality and nothing explicit. I was on the fence with this story. The idea of a cataloguing of the major events of the Darcys was an intriguing idea. Each Christmas was well thought out and watching the Darcy family grow up was wonderful to see. However, the story didn’t really draw me in. I cannot put my finger on why. Maybe there was too much jumping from one Christmas to the next.
Would I recommend this book? It depends. If you like to read rewrites of Pride and Prejudice and don’t have high expectations, get it. The last two novellas are worth reading. But I suggest not getting it at full price. I was able to get this book for pretty cheap so I don’t mind spending my money. If you are a hard core Jane Austen aficionado or looking for plot-oriented stories, skip this book.
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