Product Description

In Jane Austen's classic Pride & Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet never expects to see Mr. Darcy again after his disastrous proposal in Hunsford. But what if family business required him to stay at Rosings after giving her his letter? Coming face to face with Mr. Darcy only days later could give Elizabeth a new chance to understand him...or chance for even more misunderstandings. THE PEMBERLEY VARIATIONS by Abigail Reynolds is a series of novels exploring the roads not taken in Pride & Prejudice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #671693 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 260 pages

Customer Reviews

A joy to read
Amidst the quantity of P&P inspired books being published there is certainly a wide variation in quality.

Not, however, where Abigail Reynolds is concerned. I have read all her Regency variations and there is noone else who comes close to her standard. She is consistently brilliant!

This is again another wonderful 'what if' tale that continues with our two favourite characters detained in each other's company at Rosings. Learning to understand each other under the eye of a refreshingly written normal (ie teenage and slightly spoilt) Georgiana and a host of other relatives, the story draws you in and once again enthralls you with Abigail's grasp on her characters and their interactions.

If you are seeking a P&P variation that is of the highest quality in every respect, then buy this one. I have read it several times, and I am sure that you will too!

Four stars plus two stars divided by two equals three stars from me!
I gave in to temptation and ordered all five of these Pride and Prejudice variations at one time. I have been allowing some time to elapse between reading each book because basically they are all telling the same story, just with "variations". From this point on, there is information in my review which some may consider spoilers.

This book, BY FORCE OF INSTINCT, was well written and pleasant to read. I have rated it with three stars because it just did not rise to the level of a four star book for me consistently enough. I enjoyed it but I also began to lose patience with it and wondered why the author continued to write when she had essentially solved the problem for the two main characters.

Our story begins just after Elizabeth Bennet has read the letter from Fitzwilliam Darcy explaining his feelings and misgivings about her and the true happenings between his family and Wickham. Elizabeth is mortified to know that she has misjudged Darcy so terribly and just wants to retreat into some private place to recover emotionally from what she now knows. But she will not be allowed to do that. Due to family commitments Darcy is unable to leave Rosings Park immediately as he had planned. He has to stay on for another week and he and Elizabeth are together frequently. It is an extremely trying time for both of them.

All of the Reynolds "variations" are explorations of what might have happened to these two people if just one circumstance had changed. In this book Elizabeth and Darcy are thrown together enough after "the letter" to give them a chance to view each other more realistically. I was actually fine with the book until it began to portray characters in such completely unfamiliar roles that they made me uncomfortable. Georgiana is an insecure, spoiled brat. I realize that she is a 16 year old girl but in those times she was old enough to be considered eligible for marriage so this was not a favorable aspect of her personality for me. She does something spiteful which causes a huge problem for Elizabeth and Darcy. Too much character deviation for my taste. Mr. Bennet makes a conscious effort to dislike Darcy, even after Elizabeth tries desperately to convince him of her love for Darcy and his innate goodness. I didn't understand Mr. Bennet's pigheadedness and the author didn't help me understand. Once again, too much character deviation for my taste. Elizabeth's Uncle Gardner played a pivitol role in the engagement but he was shown to be a very harsh, stern, immoveable person. Yet again, too much character deviation for my taste.

And now we come to the sexual content of the book. Never, in my wildest dreams would I imagine Elizabeth Bennet initiating a sexual encounter with Fitzwilliam Darcy but that is exactly what this book portrays her as doing. And from then until the final pages of the book it is just one time after another of the author describing these characters trying to keep their hands off each other and not always succeeding. Okay, this is not Pride and Prejudice, this is a story written by another author, b-u-t I didn't like this aspect of the book. One incident, maybe. On and on, no. They do get married I'm glad to say but that just seemed to reveal Darcy as being totally insecure. I wasn't prepared for him to need so much reassuring by Elizabeth that she loved him. And this book just contains one misunderstanding after another (indulged in equally by both characters which at least made it different from other romances).

My bottom line is this: if you enjoy reading historical romantic fiction, you will like this book. If you are a stickler for the straight and narrow Pride and Prejudice, you will not like this book. If you find yourself somewhere in between, you will enjoy parts of it and get really frustrated (and bored) by other parts of it. Three stars? Yes, it went up to a four star level sometimes and dipped down to a two star level during other portions. I did the math and came up with three stars!

This is what great fiction is suppose to feel like.
This is an absolutely lovely book. It transports you to the world of Pride & Prejudice and then takes you places you always secretly wished Jane Austen would. Darcy is so finely drawn you feel his intense emotions through each page. Reynolds has captured the wit and vivacity of Elizabeth Bennett and given her more down to earth depth. I would highly recommend this story to anyone.