Mr. Darcy and the Island: a Pride and Prejudice variation by Valerie Lennox ★★★☆☆
Elizabeth Bennet begs her father to cancel the trip. Instead, he finds it amusing to send her along to supervise Lydia.
Handsome, charming Lieutenant George Wickham, a former favourite of Elizabeth is also in Brighton.
However, Elizabeth has finally understood that he is a duplicitous rake. When she lets him know she is wise to him, he retaliates by targeting Lydia for seduction and ruin.
One day she looses track of Lydia.
Thinking that she sees Lydia in a crowd boarding a ferry, she is alarmed to see Wickham is also there.
She jumps on board but finds no Lydia. Then she walks into Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Darcy and Elizabeth have a tempestuous past. He loves her and proposed to her. Unfortunately, Elizabeth detested him and refused, quite vociferously.
Darcy wrote a letter to Elizabeth defending his character and clearing up misinformation provided by Wickham. As a result Elizabeth has come to admire him and regret her refusal.
Darcy happens to be in Brighton and comes across his nemesis, Wickham. After a brief altercation they part. Darcy muses on all the awful things that Wickham has done and becomes enraged. He sets out to thrash Wickham. Seeing him boarding a ferry, he follows, but is stunned to see Elizabeth.
On the island, Wickham finally gets his comeuppance. The question is, who did it?
Elizabeth and Darcy become trapped on the island when they miss the ferry, which won’t be back for four days.
For various reasons, Darcy and Elizabeth pretend to be married. There is only one room available at the inn and it only has one bed. Darcy and Elizabeth have to learn to be in close quarters.
The story then details their struggles ( and temptations!) while trying to work out who the murderer is. Almost everyone present has a motive, including themselves.
Things I liked:
Good to see Wickham dealt with.
Lots of interesting non-canon characters and a different scenario for ODC.
An insight into the invidious position of women in Regency England.
Not so keen:
While we all know Darcy has a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease, this Darcy is bumbling and inept.
The somewhat ribald and frank discussions on sex between Darcy and Elizabeth, while amusing, felt a little cringe worthy.
Not bad, but not sure if I’d pay for it.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review. All views expressed are my own.
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