Mr. Darcy’s Promise

//by Jeanna Ellsworth//published 2013//

Hello,  my name is Sarah McCafferty and I judge books by their covers.  Seriously.  For some reason, this cover really weirded  me out, like if you look closely, Elizabeth’s face is really strange, so I just never bothered reading this particular Pride & Prejudice retelling.  But then it came up on Paperback Swap, so, what the hey.  Free book.

Most of the time, I don’t bother reviewing the P&P retellings I read, because they are almost all horrid.  Why do I put myself through this? you may ask.  Heck if I know.  It’s an addiction.  A terrible, terrible addiction.

However, every now and again, I come across one that’s actually decent.  And Mr. Darcy’s Promise, despite its weird cover, is actually a decent one.

First off, we all know that I have a weakness for stories where people get married first and then fall in love.  Well guess what happens in this book???  So I’m already a little biased in its favor.  Secondly, no gratuitous sex scenes!!  Woohoo!  Thirdly, people all seem normal…  no crazy Wickhams or wild-eyed enemies!  Score!  And finally, it’s actually fairly free of grammatical errors, as though the person who wrote this speaks English as her first language and graduated from high school is A’s in English.  Brilliant.

While Mr. Darcy’s Promise isn’t groundbreaking fiction, it’s a very pleasant and relaxing read, and a retelling of P&P that is, for lack of a better word, nice.  So if you, too, have a strange P&P addiction, and if you can get past the weird look on Elizabeth’s face on the cover of Mr. Darcy’s Promise, give it a whirl.  4/5.

Quote –

Fairy tales are more than moral lessons and time capsules for cultural commentary; they are natural law. The child raised on folklore will quickly learn the rules of crossroads and lakes, mirrors and mushroom rings. They’ll never eat or drink of a strange harvest or insult an old woman or fritter away their name as though there’s no power in it. They’ll never underestimate the youngest son or touch anyone’s hairpin or rosebush or bed without asking, and their steps through the woods will be light and unpresumptuous. Little ones who seek out fairy tales are taught to be shrewd and courteous citizens of the seen world, just in case the unseen one ever bleeds over.

—–S.T. Gibson