Month: January 2023

Pemberley: Mr Darcy’s Dragon by Maria Grace

A tagline for Pemberley: Mr Darcy’s Dragon reads “Pern meets Pride and Prejudice”. I could see that. There were echoes of Pern especially the fairy dragons that reminded me of the fire lizards in the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. However, the novel also reminded me of the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik.

This was a very entertaining read. After all, what’s not to like – Pride and Prejudice and dragons? Mr Darcy comes to Meryton looking for his stolen dragon egg that he needs desperately. If the egg hatches and is not bonded to a human, it will become a wild dragon and threaten the peace agreement between humans and dragons. Elizabeth Bennet can speak to dragons. She’s intended to marry Mr Collins because the estate will pass to him, and the estate’s dragon needs a dragon keeper (one who can hear dragons).

The egg hatches in the wild so there’s a race to find it so it doesn’t go feral.

I found it interesting that Mr Bennet in this novel insists that Elizabeth marry Mr Collins because she is the heir to the Dragon’s Keeper. Quite different from his attitude in the original Pride and Prejudice.

I also found it interesting that Mary is the only other Bennet sister who can hear dragons and not Jane, Elizabeth’s favourite sister. In the other fantasy Pride and Prejudice inspired novels I’ve read, it’s usually poor old Mary who lacks any magical ability.

I really loved the different types of dragons in Pemberley: Mr Darcy’s Dragon. Wyverns, cockatrices, fairy dragons, tatzelwurms. The fairy dragons strongly reminded me of the fire lizards in the Pern series and were just as enchanting. Rumblekins the Tatzelwurm, who is a cat like dragon was one of my favourites. Pemberley the baby dragon is very sweet.

Maria Grace uses a lot of the original text in this novel and does it very cleverly. She sometimes transfers speeches from one character to another. For example, Charlotte Lucas’s cynical speech about marriage is given to Mr Bennet to encourage Elizabeth to marry Mr Collins. I imagine most readers will enjoy spotting the snippets of original text.

I definitely want to read more in this series.

Darcy’s Midsummer Madness by Cass Grix

Darcy’s Midsummer Madness by Cass Grix, is a novella, which is loosely based on the play, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream (as you can probably guess from the title). Cass Grix, I discovered at the end of the novella, is a pen name for Jane Grix. Jane Grix writes mainstream Pride and Prejudice inspired fiction and under her pen name of Cass Grix, writes paranormal and/or fantasy Pride and Prejudice inspired fiction.

Plot

The plot of Darcy’s Midsummer Madness is as follows: Miss Bingley is desperate for Mr Darcy to propose to her. However, she realises she hasn’t got a chance against Elizabeth Bennet. She hears of a witch and asks the old woman to make her a love potion. This is sent to Netherfield but James Puck who has a grudge against Miss Bingley because she’s just sacked him, intercepts it. So, he sprinkles the love potion over the pastries to be served at the ball. He also puts urine (ugh!) in the bottle and delivers it to her. She then can’t understand why the love potion doesn’t work on Mr Darcy.

At the Netherfield Ball, guests eat the pastries and fall in love with people different from the ones they’re usually paired with. Lydia Bennet falls in love with Mr Darcy until he rejects her which her vanity can’t stand. Mr Collins falls in love with Lydia, but Miss Bingley falls in love with him and proposes. He chooses to become engaged to her for mercenary reasons. Wickham’s friend, Mr Denny, falls in love with Mrs Bennet. This gets Mr Bennet all riled up and jealous after he eats a pastry and leads to a fist fight, and Mr Bennet kissing Mrs Bennet.

Mr Darcy avoids the pastries and he and Elizabeth get to know each other better. She discovers the truth about Mr Wickham at the ball. Elizabeth realises that Mr Darcy is a good guy and develops feelings for him.

Mr Bingley proposes to Jane at the ball but then eats a pastry and falls in love with Charlotte Lucas and ignores Jane at supper. Then later on, the potion wears off and he tries to win Jane back. I was really pleased that Jane didn’t immediately forgive him, and it took some time for him to win her back.

The epilogue also has Mary Bennet engaged to Mr Denny and Charlotte Lucas engaged to Colonel Forster. The latter did surprise me as I thought Colonel Forster was already married in the original.

Characters

Miss King runs off with James Puck the footman because James gives her one of the doctored pastries. I felt sorry for Miss King as James Puck is not a nice character. Miss Bingley sacked him because he got one of the maids pregnant and wasn’t going to marry her.

In the end, the traditional pairings have changed a little. Miss Bingley marries Mr Collins because Mr Bingley refuses to allow her to break it off when she realises what she’s done. This did disturb me a little bit. I thought Miss Bingley did the right thing by sacking James as he was a nasty character. Though I disliked her, I did feel sorry for her ending up married to Mr Collins. Although the epilogue shows that she’s okay with the situation.

James Puck’s name is a not so subtle hint about what plays the novella is based on.

Kitty doesn’t get a look in, she only gets one or two lines of dialogue at most. And Lydia plays only a minor part. So, if you like stories to feature Kitty or Lydia, this is not the novella for you.

The story is written in the first person from nearly all the characters’ viewpoints.

I enjoyed this novella; it was pretty light-hearted and amusing. For example, when Mr Collins gives his speech from Pride and Prejudice about his reasons for getting married and Mr Bingley cuts him short.