Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Austenesque novels’ Category

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange: A Review, Part 3

Posted in Austenesque novels, Book review, jane austen, Popular culture, Regency World, tagged , , , , , , on August 9, 2009| 13 Comments »

Jane Austen, Vampyre Critic

Jane Austen, Vampyre Critic

Inquiring Reader,

Here then is Lizzie’s last letter to her sister relating her adventures with Mr. Darcy, Vampyre. She had divided her thoughts into three missives, not wanting to burden Jane with all of her emotions at once. For another take on the book, please click here and read Laurel Ann’s well thought out review on Austenprose and a favorable review on Austenblog. Three bloggers, three points of view.

My dearest Jane,

Well, what a crock, as they say in 21st century America! I’ve had to delve a full 250 pages into Mr. Darcy Vampyre to find out what was going to happen to us. And then the plot was so rushed and jumbled that I never did received an adequate explanation of how vampyres came to be, or what exactly Mr. Darcy ate in order to survive for 150 years. Upon my honor, Jane, I am aware that men are not particularly conversant when it comes to giving out details, but I’d had no notion that Mr. Darcy suffered from a verbal disability. He could not for the life of him adequately explain his strange tale. In describing one of the most important events of his life – that of turning into a vampyre – he took all of 21 words. (STOP!: Major Spoiler Alert: “The woman turned to me, her fangs dripping red and then she was next to me and my neck was pierced”).

Ms. Anne Rice took pages and pages to describe the writhing tormenting death that humans go through to turn into vampyres, and even Ms. Stephanie Meyers hinted that the transformation was quite unpleasantly painful, but all I got from Mr. Darcy was twenty one itty bitty little words. In addition he made it sound as if turning into a vampyre was an ordinary event, with Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper, choosing to join the merry Pemberley vampyre band, although, to give Ms. Grange her due, my husband’s face WAS shadowed as he related these events.

Any discerning reader knows that Ms. Meyers can’t write her way out of a paper bag, but at least with Twilight she told a rousing good tale. Ms. Meyers also gave the reader ample glimpses of Edward Cullen’s mental torment and extraordinary physical skills. Ms Grange’s story of my life with Mr. Darcy is, frankly, missing the otherworldly touches and sensuality that vampyre fans have come to expect as their due. (Either that or humor, which is also absent. And you know how I am renowned for my BITING wit, hah!)  Her hints about my husband are so thinly scattered in 5/6th of the book that they left me feeling confused rather than threatened. To say that suspense was lacking in our tale is to state the obvious. In the instances when Ms. Grange eschewed Bram Stoker’s lore, her vampyre rules seemed jerry-rigged, for they sprung up from nowhere, unsupported by a well thought-out back story. I could never quite tell (except in a few meagre scenes at the end) which super powers my husband had supposedly acquired, how ancient vampyres ruled their vampyre empire, or how conflicted Mr. Darcy felt watching those he loved grow old and die whilst he lived on forever.

Never was a more sensual and sensuous vampyre created than The Vampire Lestat, and I felt that my Mr. Darcy deserved at the very least the rich, decadent and multi-layered descriptions that Anne Rice gave to her own vampire. But it was not to be. There was a lot of telling in this book, but very little showing, and scent and touch were largely missing. Ms. Grange turned Mr. Darcy into a milque toast vampyre when I frankly would have preferred someone darker.

To add insult to injury, I am also suffering from a major letdown. When Mr. Darcy and I finally came together as one, Ms. Grange glossed over our glorious moments in a single paragraph. I kid you not. My love for Darcy SAVED him from eternal damnation and hell, (and crumbling buildings, fissures, and falling statues). I think that at the very least I deserved to sing soprano as our entwined souls soared to the rafters! Instead I merely trembled and weakened. I’m done and refuse to lend my good name (and Mr. Darcy’s) to another sequel. My husband and I are headed for England and the hallowed halls of Pemberley, for I am genuinely concerned about your last letter. Your cryptic statement informing me that our friends the Misses Dashwood were abducted by a giant octopus leaves me most anxious to use my zombie slayer warrior skills to save them.

Love,

Mrs. Darcy, Once sang alto, now sings soprano

Mr Darcy, Vampyre coverVic gives this book One and 1/2 fangs out of four fangs, mostly for trying, for as a travel log the book is quite satisfying. Read the other reviews here:

Read Full Post »

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange: A Review, Part Two

Posted in Austenesque novels, Book review, Popular culture, Regency Life, tagged , , on August 8, 2009| 13 Comments »

colin darcy as vampireInquiring readers,

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange took me one month to read. For 200 pages the interminable plot seemed to twist in endless slow circles, like flotsam in the wide Sargasso Sea, before true vampyric action began. Mrs. Darcy’s (nee Bennet’s) letters, recently uncovered in a dusty attic, illuminate what actually transpired in her mind as she traveled from castle to castle during her honeymoon. Her first letter to her sister Jane can be found in the post below, or in this link. Her third letter can be read at this link. Here then, is the second of three installments. So much hoopla has surrounded this highly anticipated novel, that I felt it incumbent upon me to share all three of Lizzie’s letters.

My dearest Jane,

I must be going mad, for inexplicably I find myself living a life I would never have chosen inside a book entitled Mr. Darcy, Vampyre. First, the author, Ms Grange, has got my character wrong. Had Mr. Darcy announced before our wedding that he was planning to take me on a Grand Tour of the Continent instead of a proper honeymoon, I would have delicately persuaded him to take me to Pemberley, for it was inside that grand edifice that I expected to be fully made his bride! Instead, we have been wandering over Swiss hill and Italian dale on an aimless journey, with Mr. Darcy disappearing at the most inopportune moments. For 200 pages I have been consorting with strangers for whom I care not one whit. One even let slip that she believes she is 500 years old, at which point I heard the cuckoo clock strike thirteen times.

Jane, I am most perplexed at my husband’s continued lack of “amore”. He gives me “looks”, not of the yearning variety either, but simply “looks.” Having observed barnyard animals and their straightforward approach to reproduction, I have a good notion of where my wifely duty lies (for as we both know our parents were sadly lacking in educating us on this topic), and I know that begetting an heir requires more than merely looking. Thus I was as all prepared to shut my eyes and think of England as Mr. Darcy had his wicked way with me, but Ms. Grange has my Fitzwilliam shirking his husbandly responsibilities! In fact, I feel as if I’m trapped inside a book whose plot seems to have no point

I’ve had so much alone time on my hands that, as with Father’s study, I’ve spent hours in my husband’s Venetian library pouring over his enormous collection of books. He seems to have a strange fixation with vampyres, owning dozens of ancient, well-thumbed tomes containing vivid descriptions of immortal beings who must suck the blood of humans to survive. Does Mr. Darcy believe he is a vampyre, as the title of Ms. Grange’s book suggests? If so, is this the reason why he has been avoiding me? But of course this could not be so! For I’m as hot blooded a woman as they come, and what self-respecting vampyre could resist the rich red corpuscles pulsing through my blue veins? I have one bulging vein on my left wrist that is particularly tempting, not to mention those  that lie close to the surface of my neck. The ancient books also describe vampyres as suffering mightily from internal struggles, for they are doomed to kill those they love or turn them into vampyres, but frankly, the biggest struggle Mr. Darcy has demonstrated in this novel thus far is deciding on whether to join me for dinner  and …

Pray, is that a noise coming from the corridor? I must lay my quill aside, for perhaps it is my husband finally coming to claim my virginal self.

Mr Darcy, Vampyre coverAdieu for now! Your ever hopeful sister,

Lizzie

  • Living Girl Reads suggests that Henry Crawford, predatory male that he is, would have made a better vampyre. What think you?

Read Full Post »

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre, by Amanda Grange: A Review, Part One

Posted in Austenesque novels, Book review, jane austen, Popular culture, tagged , , on August 7, 2009| 15 Comments »

Mr Darcy, Vampyre coverInquiring reader,

Great news! I have come across some letters by Elizabeth Bennet about  Mr. Darcy, Vampyre, written by Amanda Grange , which is coming out this month. These letters, well, critiques, really, were penned long ago and describe events that seem to have transpired in a parallel universe. I was particularly struck by how freely Elizabeth shared her thoughts with her sister Jane about her adventures with an other-worldly Mr. Darcy. I will be publishing all of Elizabeth’s critiques over the next few days. Contained herein, then, is critique, part one of Mr. Darcy, Vampyre. For those to whom this matters, spoiler alert!

My dearest Jane,

I have unaccountably awoken in the 21st century and I am writing to you out of habit, though I surmise that you must be long gone, or also living in that grey netherworld of the undead fictional character into which I have landed. I’ve just discovered that Mr. Darcy and I are the hero and heroine of a spate of books that, frankly, my dear sister, make me blush from shame. Apart from their topics (imagine us as zombie fighters and being married to vampyres), I am depicted as behaving in a manner that is so unlike myself that I fear my blood shall boil from the rise in my temper.

A recent book, which has turned my Mr. Darcy into a vampyre, has me seething in particular, for, my dear Jane, you know better than anyone that I am no namby pamby missish nebbish. In this book, the author has Mr. Darcy shunning my bed. The REAL Elizabeth Darcy née Bennet, had Mr. Darcy been guilty of such a heinous offence, would not have accepted the situation without hunting him down the corridors of their cruise ship (which is what honeymoon vessels seem to be these days) and demanding an explanation of why he was unresolved in his husbandly DUTY of BEGETTING an heir immediately. Instead, this Ms Grange has me strangely accepting the situation as if I were a zombie, which I am assuredly NOT, for has not Mr. Grahame-Smith given me the warrior skills to chop off their heads?

What particularly burns me, to use 21st century parlance, is that I take pride in my conversational ability. Sparks fly when Mr. Darcy and I converse. Even when such a mundane subject as tea comes up, double entendres abound. One may be assured that Mr. Darcy and I can easily devote hours of our lives sparring verbally and taking pleasure from these seemingly uneventful encounters. But Ms Grange has us speaking in dead and flat voices, as if we were not Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth from the brilliant mind of Jane Austen, but another couple conjured up by some other author who happened to have given us similar names.

My dear Jane, I can assure you that there is only ONE Mr. Darcy and his Elizabeth. And so, I do protest strongly. Let Miss Grange choose another couple to write about. Miss Jane Austen was the first to use us and she should be the last! Oh, I am exhausted. My blood has almost reached boiling point, and I must find a cooling bath for, unfortunately, more than one reason.

Signed,

Your wedded but unbedded sister, Lizzie.

P.S. Are you experiencing a rabid bat infestation? One almost flew through my window, but I slammed it shut before it could enter. I shudder to think what might have happened had it landed on my neck. (Now why on earth did I think that?) I shall write more about this situation tomorrow, for there is so much I must share with you about my new life that my thoughts cannot be contained within a mere few sheets of vellum.

Read Full Post »

Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler: Review of a Time Travel Novel

Posted in Austenesque novels, Book review, jane austen, Popular culture, Regency World, tagged , , on July 12, 2009| 8 Comments »

Update! The paperback edition of this novel is available at this link.

I became hooked on time travel stories watching Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. Then I read Jude Devereux’s Knight in Shining Armor and fell so in love with the characters and improbable plot that I began to actively seek out time travel novels. I discovered from reading Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander and watching the recent television presentation of Lost in Austen that I prefer stories that take a character back in history over those in which a person is transported to our time. This is simply a matter of taste. So I beg of you, gentle reader, to keep my little bias in mind as you read this review of Laurie Viera Rigler’s latest book, whose cover of Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict appropriately depicts a Regency woman wearing an ipod.

Rude Awakening of a Jane Austen Addict Having traveled back to the Regency era in Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, Courtney Stone is now living Jane Mansfield’s life. It happened like this: One evening, the very American, extremely modern Courtney is grieving over the end of her engagement to a cad and the betrayal of her best male friend, Wes. The next morning she wakes up in Regency England in the body of a tall, elegant woman whose relationship with her mother can best be described as rotten. Confessions ended with Courtney falling in love with Jane’s beau, Mr. Edgeworth, and overcoming the inconvenience of living without indoor plumbing or electricity. But if Courtney has taken over Jane Mansfield’s body and life, what became of her regency counterpart?

In Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict the reader discovers that poor Jane Mansfield has been transported into Courtney’s shorter, curvier body after a fall from a horse and has landed smack dab in a modern apartment in Los Angeles. Horror of horrors, nothing that Jane has ever known is recognizable in this strange environment, nothing except for Pride and Prejudice. The 1995 A&E version is playing on television as Jane examines her strange surroundings. Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth are mere illusions but Jane confuses their ethereal transmissions for the real thing. She is rapturous when she comes across Jane Austen’s novels on Courtney’s bookshelves, happily discovering that more were published than the two she’d known about. The books provide her with her first emotional security blanket, for up to that moment everything Jane has seen, heard, and touched in this new world has been surreal and mind-boggling. As Jane says to a fortune teller who helps her sort out her confusion, “If I am not asleep, how can I be anything but awake?”

One imagines that Courtney had a much easier time adjusting to the past, for she’d been a Jane Austen addict, and had had the opportunity to study the regency era in history books and novels. Poor Jane Mansfield had no such knowledge about 2009, for who in 1813 could have forecast the invention of microwave ovens, cars, cell phones, planes, elevators, high rise buildings, computers, refrigerators, and – wonder of wonders – efficient showers and toilets? And then there were the clothes. How was a self-respecting Regency Miss supposed to wear those indecently skimpy outfits and hoydenish makeup that her new friends put on without blushing?

modern la

Thankfully, Courtney’s body has retained a visceral 21st-century memory of dressing, driving and using appliances, giving Jane some time to recover her equilibrium and sort out her bewildering surroundings. When life becomes too crushing for her, she happily hunkers down to read Emma or Mansfield Park, or watch the marvelous movie adaptations of Jane’s novels. Despite those few moments of bliss, there are still many modern customs that Jane must learn. She is both intrigued and appalled that women must work for a living, for isn’t this an activity reserved for working class women? And yet the working women she meets enjoy riches and freedoms that she could only dream about in her constricted regency world. Then there is the situation with her rotten ex-fiance and ex-best friend, Wes, whose gentle presence is at odds with the antipathy Jane’s new friends feel toward him. Wes is just the sort of Mark II hero that this reviewer loves – sweet, warm, cuddly, and handsome – and I rooted for him to win Jane’s hand despite the evidence of his betrayal.

Rude Awakenings ties up the plot threads left dangling in Confessions, and I was pleasantly surprised to have my many questions answered in a sensible way, especially about Jane’s terrible mother. Of the two books, I did prefer Confessions, but please do recall my bias towards those who travel backwards, not forwards. Having spent a satisfying couple of evenings reading this latest installment of Laurie’s series, I would like to see her write a third one in which the descendants of the Jane Austen Addict characters are united. In my imagined plot I see Courtney writing an extensive journal about her Regency experiences which languishes on the dusty shelves of an antique book seller for over 150 years. This document is discovered by Jane’s daughter, a confirmed Jane Austen addict and romance novelist. She visits England in 2034 in search of archived information about the Mansfield and Wentworth families after her mother confesses a few pertinent bits of information about her Regency past. During her quest, Jane’s daughter meets a haughty male descendant of Courtney’s, a handsome but priggish Jane Austen scholar, who discounts Courtney’s journal as the rantings of an insane relative. The two young descendants disagree, sparks fly, she suggests a DNA test, and they then …. well, use your imagination.

3 regency fansMeanwhile, I can think of no better way of spending a Sunday afternoon than to curl up in a hammock and read Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict. Just make sure to have enough ice tea and sun screen at hand, for you won’t be able to put this gently humorous book down until you are finished. Three out of three Regency fans.

More links:

Read Full Post »

Jane Austen Ruined My Life, A Review

Posted in Austenesque novels, Book review, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Popular culture, tagged , on January 30, 2009| 10 Comments »

jane-austen-ruined-my-lifeJane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Pattillo is a surprisingly fast and fun read, and I found myself unable to put it down at times. The plot revolves around wishful thinking: WHAT IF Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra saved more of her letters than we know about? What if the missing correspondence is hidden somewhere protected from the public?

This knowledge has English professor and devoted Jane Austen scholar Emma Grant salivating. Her academic reputation is in tatters after her husband and his teaching assistant (and paramour) accuse her of plagiarism. Newly divorced and denied tenure, Dr. Grant travels to London hot on the trail of the rumored missing letters. There she meets up with Mrs. Gwendolyn Parrot, a Formidable, who tantalizingly allows Emma to read a copied snippet of Jane’s missing letters. Scholar that she is, Emma immediately recognizes Jane’s handwriting and the (seeming) authenticity of the fragment. To be certain, she would have to read a copy of the original.

After extracting a promise of secrecy from Emma, Mrs. Parrot sends her on a series of tasks, in which Emma visits Steventon, Chawton Cottage, Bath … well, you get the drift … all the places that Jane Austen either lived in or traveled to. Emma’s motives for going through all this trouble are the possibilities of handling the actual letters and researching them. Her resulting book would salvage her academic reputation. Traveling with Emma is an old flame who, coincidentally, is staying in the same flat as Emma. Does he know of her secret or is he truly as interested in her as he claims? His presence adds to the mystery and suspense of the plot. The book is a fast read and I found it completely satisfying until the very end. While Emma finds her own definition of a happy ending (which, I will concede, made logical sense), I wanted to scream out “No!” and rewrite that ending. You see, romantic that I am, I do believe that people can have their cake and eat it too.

Beth Pattillo’s latest novel reads less like a Jane Austen sequel and more like a The Da Vinci Code offspring. Consequently it will appeal to a broader audience than most Austenesque books. Having said that, the plot is not wholly original . There are echoes of  Syrie James’s The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen (in which Jane’s lost manuscript is uncovered and in which she describes a lost love) and Lori Smith’s A Walk With Jane Austen (in which Lori visits the places where Jane lived or traveled). The author, whose writing style is elegant and spare, has written eight other popular books, including the award winning Heavens to Betsy. You can visit her at http://www.bethpattillo.com for more information.

3-regency-fansJane Austen Ruined My life, a Guideposts Book, is slated to come out on February 3rd. 978-0-8249-4771-2, $14.99. Order a copy at this link.

I give it 3 regency fans out of 3.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts