In the interim, #2

After Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, I started on the new Meg Cabot book, Queen of Babble, but so far in the first 36 pages, it’s not gripping me. I’ll read some more, but if it doesn’t pique my interest, I think I’ll just turn it in.

A few days ago, I got a book in on hold, for which I had been waiting a while. It is Bella at Midnight, by Diane Stanley. It’s a YA retelling of the Cinderella story. It came up in my section I purchase for the library, and it sounded so good (starred review!) that I wanted to read it. Anyway, it is quite good so far with some twists. I should finish it soon and get around to reviewing it.

Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll

I probably shouldn’t be trying to write this while watching The Joy Luck Club (hm, maybe I should read that one again, too!), but I am. Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife is a contemporary book written in the style of Jane Austen, and continues the story of Pride and Prejudice, which is my favorite book. It starts with Mr. & Mrs. Darcy’s trip home to Pemberley. While not Jane Austen, it is well written and a pretty good story. And quite risque! There are several sex scenes in the book, which I actually thought quite funny, as they are written in J.A.’s style. For example:

“She was only sensible that his shirt and small-clothes clung to him, hindering her hands from sliding across his body. Evidently, this was an irritant to him as well. For he rose from her and begat a fierce struggle to divest himself of them.”

Anyway, most of the book (and it is a lengthy 465 pages) is not sex. The plot interweaves the Darcys’ story with the Bingleys’ and the Wickhams’, and is rather convoluted. There is the bastard son of Darcy or Wickham, we’re not really sure, the kidnapping of Elizabeth, the sudden and unfortunate demise of a certain clergyman, and the disappearance of Miss Darcy in the company of said bastard son. The characters are written more emotionally, and the novel seems more melodramatic to me than P&P. J.A. excelled at observation and finding humor in other’s follies, and Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife seems almost an action novel in comparison (this kind of makes me thing of Eddie Izzard’s description of A Room with a View and what would happen should Hollywood get a hold of it).

Berdoll also develops the characters from P&P – especially Wickham, who turns out to be quite the rogue. Miss Darcy surprised me as well. I liked that she allowed the characters to grow. I think I will put Darcy & Elizabeth, the next one, on my reading list.