"She is tolerable, I suppose"

Dear readers, I am not sure if I have mentioned my intense LOVE affair with Jane Austen books and movies. I have seen Pride and Prejudice countless numbers of times. I have read Emma so many times I have certain passages memorized. And don’t even get me started on how many times my friend Ann and I have watched Colin Firth coming out of that pond in Pemberley dripping wet in that white, see-though shirt, and …. Oh, goodness, is it hot in here?

I LOVE Jane Austen.

Anyway, aforementioned friend Ann informed me there was a whole genre of Pride and Prejudice prequels and sequels (not written by Austen, of course) that I simply had to start reading. Why, you ask, would I want to read a book about Darcy and Elizabeth that was not written by Jane Austen, when I worship her every written word? Because there is SEX in them.

I’ve decided to start reading any and all derivations of Pride and Prejudice. The other Jane Austen freaks in the internet claim that I should start with the series written by Pam Aidan, starting with “An Assembly Such as This: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman.”

Where to start? First, I LOVED it.

The ONLY downside to Jane Austen novels is that because she was so intent on writing strong, yet often silly women, her leading men’s characters were often overlooked and therefore, mysterious. WHY was Darcy so proud? WHY was Darcy so arrogant? WHY did he fall so passionately in love with Elizabeth when his behavior indicated that she was “not handsome enough to tempt” him?

Aidan attempts to answer these many questions. Written from Darcy’s point of view, we learn that Darcy indeed had a sense of humor, that he and Mr. Bingley shared their disdain of Miss Bingley’s attraction to Darcy and that he had, in fact, a HUGE crush on Elizabeth.

It’s good ya’ll. Darcy is written as painfully shy, very human, afraid of rejection and still terribly worried about his younger’s sister obvious depression after Wickham’s thwarted attempt to elope with her. Some new characters in Darcy’s life are introduced, my favorite being his valet, Fletcher, who apparently schemes for ways to place Darcy and Elizabeth to interact with each other.

This is the first in a three part series. I’ll be soon reading part 2, Duty and Desire. The first in the series only takes us through ball that Bingley hosted and I'm anxious to read about Darcy and Elizabeth's time together in Kent, at his aunt's estate. That where the sparks really started to fly.

More to come.