Mr. Darcy, Vampyre - Amanda Grange

Summary: A married man in possession of a dark fortune must be in want of an eternal wife.

December 1802

My hand is trembling as I write this letter. My nerves are in tatters and I am so altered that I believe you would not recognize me. The past two months have been a nightmarish whirl of strange and disturbing circumstances, and the future…

I am afraid.

If anything happens to me, remember that I love you and that my spirit will always be with you, though we may never see each other again. The world is a cold and frightening place where nothing is as it seems. (Image from sourcebooks.com - summary from back of book)

My review: What?!?! Don’t look at me that way. I thought it would be fun. After all, who doesn’t want to read a continuation to the lovely Pride and Prejudice? And besides, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies still has a waiting list so I thought I’d go a different route. I am so regretting it.

This book was horrible. Beginning. Middle. End. All beyond bad. Mr. Darcy, Vampyre picks up the morning before the wedding as Elizabeth and Jane contemplate their coming nuptials. This is perhaps the only point in time where Elizabeth actually acts like Elizabeth. For the rest of the book she is a quiet little mouse who just sits back and allows Darcy to cart her all over kingdom come on a wedding tour, wherein he acts completely insane and refrains from consummating their marriage. The REAL Elizabeth would have called him on it in a matter of seconds (okay, maybe days). She would have had something to say about his strange behavior, his absences, and his standoffish friends and would hardly have been all swoony and demure.

The only real connection with the original P&P and this so-called continuation was, obviously, the names of the characters and, irritatingly, their tendency to spout one-liners made famous in the previous novel--verbatim. “You write uncommonly fast!” or “From now on you must be stranger to one of your parents…” It was like the author was trying to remind you “Hey! Look! See! It’s Elizabeth and Darcy! I promise. You can tell because they are referencing the original novel!” Bah. It made me want to break the binding (gasp, I know).

Above all, this book was BORRRING. There is little interaction between Darcy and Elizabeth, in ANY form, and so you are forced to listen to the innermost thoughts of a very watered down Elizabeth. With few exceptions, nothing really happened until the last 70 pages of this 308-page book when Elizabeth finally found out Darcy’s secret. Then everything just went completely haywire to the point of being ridiculous. I eventually just had to skim through the last 20 pages because it was THAT absurd and I just wanted the whole thing to be over.

If you are even considering reading this book, my advice to you would be…Don’t do it. Seriously. I'm fairly certain it sucked out a portion of my soul.

Also, I’m going to take a wild stab and say that it is physically impossible to cross the Alps in one day – whether one is on horseback or not.

My rating: 1 Star.

Sum it up: If our electricity were to go out and we had to start using the wood stove to heat our home, THIS BOOK (if it weren't a library book, thank HEAVENS) would be the first thing offered up as kindling.** I wouldn’t even bat an eyelash.

**If we had no other source of fuel, mind you. I'm not advocating the burning of books, even if they are really awful.