There is a very good reason why fairy tales end with "and they lived happily ever after" - ever after is boring! This was too much like pulp Regency romances I've read during fits of boredom - where the smart, vivacious heroine tries to gain acceptance with "The Ton". (If you like these, Julie Garwood's are the best in my opinion.) I had to force myself to finish, then found out what I should have done is read the epilogue - it satisfies all your curiosity about the author's interpretation of what happened to the Bennett sisters. ( )

One of the saddest things about a book where one has learned to love the characters is the end because they are lost to you forever. Helen Halstead does a good job of writing the story of not only the Darcy's after their marriage, but the entire Bennet clan. There are no vampires or other strange occurrences - it is simply a continuance of the story by a woman who adores Jane Austen. If you loved Pride and Prejudice, you'll find this book worth reading. ( )

I'm a fan of austen inspired books and found this to be one of the better Pride and Prejudice sequels. Although she’s no Austen, Halstead remains true to the characters Austen created and writes in the in style and language of the period. ( )

I'm a sucker for the faux Austen, and I love to hate the bad ones more than I enjoy reading the okay ones. This one was okay. (Like aircraft landing on carriers, no faux Austen is ever rated higher than "okay.") The author got details of Regency life correct (no one said "okay," as happened in another faux Austen) as far as non-expert I noticed.

Its faults lie in its very form. A faux Austen cannot have the dramatic tension necessary to a successful novel because the characters we love best resolved their conflict in the original. The reader wants to spend more time with Elizabeth and Darcy but any new conflict -- infertility, jealousy, awkwardness, Pemberley blown up in a new Gunpowder plot or because an unhinged caretaker didn't release steam from the boilers* -- seems farfetched or melodramatic or disloyal. The reader might wish to see Kitty, Mary, Georgiana, Anne, or even Caroline suitably married or at least happy, but the author must short-shrift either them (the unmarried sources of suitable Austenesque tension) or Elizabeth and Darcy, about whom the reader cares most. Also, it's difficult to balance Charlotte's prudence about matrimony with the contemporary reader's desire for better-rounded heroines.

The least I expect from a faux Austen is textual accuracy. Mary is the third sister, not the fourth. Darcy's first name is Fitzwilliam. Kent and Derbyshire are more than a morning's travel distant. Halstead did nothing so egregious, but she took characters in directions I would not have. She depicts Charlotte as not delighting in the Darcy match, which is textually false, after which the Collinses drop from view with no mention of the olive branch, and I do not think either Charlotte or Elizabeth would so blithely drop the friendship (though it would alter). The Gardiners do not appear on scene at all and are mentioned only in passing. Anne de Bourgh not only lives, she marries and manages not to die in childbed. Lady Catherine's machinations I ignored.

Mention of "fish pie" made me smile -- a nod to _A Room with a View_? Another reference maybe wasn't textually likely -- Caroline Bingley is not the sort to go to Brussels as the English mass against Napoleon -- but I did like the parallel thus drawn between her and Becky Sharp, whom she certainly resembles. Halstead pasted on a epilogue so the reader gets to see Mr. Bennet with his many grandchildren, which is nice, but I guess the Deathly Hallows epilogue kindly** ruined the x-years-later epilogue for me (though for Wickham to die, insane with syphilis, in a madhouse is satisfying).

* _The Shining_. The Kubrick film ending is much more satisfying, in that the hotel will live to kill again, as well as less far-fetched.
** I just reread _All the Pretty Horses_.

Review @ (http://knightlee.livejournal.com) ( )