Austen Fan Fiction: "Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman" trilogy

These Three Remain by Pamela Aidan is the finale of the “Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman” series. Previously, I reviewed Duty andDesire the second in the series. I thought I’d wait a bit in between the two, but I just really wanted to know Darcy’s perspective on the events after he proposes, is rejected, then saves the day, thus I finished the third installment.

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman #3

These Three Remain begins with Darcy going to visit his Aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh and running into none other than Miss Elizabeth Darcy, the woman he has just forsworn to forget. Instead of forgetting her, however, he endeavors to embrace his emotions and ask for her hand. He is rejected. Thus ensues the story of Darcy’s humbling, hurt, and self-discovery. The story ends with the double wedding of Darcy to Elizabeth and Bingley to Jane.

The final chapter in the trilogy was enjoyable. I was propelled forward by my desire to see how Darcy’s feelings advanced and how he and Elizabeth ended up together. The details given over how Darcy felt about the rejection and his further actions in response to his rejected proposal were enlightening, but often a bit wordy. The description did not need to be so elaborate. After a while, it became tiresome to read about his hurt feelings. Though I enjoyed reading about his dealings with Lydia and Wickham and the lengths he went to in discovering them and marrying them.

 I found that I truly liked the character of Dy, one of Darcy’s old friends, who has an intriguing side of his own. Georgiana was a wonderful character as well. She was still a shy young girl, but underneath all of that is an intelligent woman who wants to learn and is capable of running her own life.

The ending was what was to be expected. Although, I must admit, I’m always a little thrown off by the sudden pairing of Darcy and Elizabeth. The three novels that Aidan wrote helped explain Darcy’s side, but it is still sudden after being so unsure of the other’s emotions that they end up together and marry so quickly. Darcy is keeping his distance and then a day later, he’s whispering sweet nothings and kissing Elizabeth’s hands. Then they’re married in no time. Where’s the courting? I love me some Pride and Prejudice but the ending is always abrupt, and this book did not change that.

Some of the plot points did not wrap up well. I felt that Aidan should spend some words on explaining what happened in certain events, like with Lady Sayer, and less time talking about Darcy’s nagging feelings.

All in all, I enjoyed the books, the first and third more than the second. The trilogy is an inspired look into the mind and happenings of Mr. Darcy, and Aidan does a fine job of writing in the style of Miss Austen. There were some loop holes that threw me off, but, for the most part, a charming fan fiction.

Again, if you want a similar read to this trilogy, try these:

• The Three Colonels by Jack Caldwell
• Mr. Darcy’s Diary by Amanda Grange

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman #2

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman #1

A Different Kind of Alyss

I’m coming to the realization that I love fantasy fiction. I do not like giving myself that title, because I lump fantasy in with sci-fi and I don’t enjoy sci-fi. But I love fairies, magical lands, and fairytale-esque storylines. The little princess in me screams for her dresses and Prince Charming. Cliché? Yes I know. Actually I prefer the magic and adventure over the marrying, but sometimes a little romance is fun too.  

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor is my latest fantasy read. Based on Lewis’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Beddor takes the idea of Wonderland to a whole new level. Actually this book is a combination of fantasy and sci-fi, but we’ll get to that later.

Alyss Heart’s seventh birthday is quite the celebration in wonderland. The Princess who will one day secede to the throne of Wonderland is beloved by the people and shows a lot of promise as a practitioner of imagination, but her Aunt Redd has other plans. The rival sister to the queen, Redd has been in exile because of her practice of black imagination, but she has built up her forces and on Alyss’s seventh birthday, Redd overthrows her sister and takes control of Wonderland. Alyss witnesses her mother’s death and barely gets out with her own life. The only way for Alyss to survive is to takeher chances in another world with Hatter, her mother’s body guard. But things go terribly wrong and Alyss and Hatter lose each other. Alyss ends up on the streets in Victorian England, while Hatter makes it his mission to find her. In Wonderland, things are going poorly with Redd’s rule, but after many years, Alyss finally makes her way back to Wonderland. She must learn once again how to wield her powers and stop Redd.

Beddor created a Wonderland that is both magical and technical. The card soldiers and more like robots and there are a lot of devices that fall into the sci-fi aspect of fiction. The story is interesting to see the twist from Victorian children’s fiction to what Alyss’s reality was in Wonderland. The characters were a little shallow for me. Motives and desires were easy to see and I didn’t feel there is a lot of depth to their personalities. The story is engaging and adventurous. It is a storyline that has been done hundreds of times before. Bad guy takes over and reeks havoc, so hero must step up to right things.

All in all, this is an easy read and entertaining. It is the first and a triology along with having offshoots of graphic novels devoted to Hatter. I am not itching to read the next two books, but I may pick them up at some point.

My Weakness for Princess Books Falls Flat

“The Princess and the Hound” by Mette Ivie Harrison

Magic use to run freely in the kingdom of Kendel, but after a legendary prince was turned into a bear, animal magic is banned. Animal magic practitioners, who can call on animals, talk to them, listen to them, and even change others into animals are cast out and hunted down inquisition style.

Centuries later, Prince George is born and as he grows he learns about his own animal magic. This is a secret he must keep for fear of death. But keeping the secret costs him his health and happiness. After his mother’s death, the young prince plunges himself into his duties and hiding his magic.

Princess Beatrice comes from a neighboring kingdom that has a rocky relationship with Kendel, so a marriage between the Princess and Prince George will hopefully help create a better relationship between the kingdoms. Beatrice is said to be odd and always have her hound by her side. There is something off putting about this woman, but George feels pulled to her and her dog.

Secrets always have a way of getting out and when Prince George’s father, AKA the king, falls ill, the relationship between the Prince and Princess takes a few turns.

The cover and title of this book made me think of a Beauty and the Beast type story, and it wasn’t too far off to assume that, but unlike the fairy tale, I did not find myself pulled into the story. Here’s an example of why I should not judge a book by its cover.

Although written well, the story never took off. When action and adventure should have occurred I found myself sloshing through this book like walking through muck in a swamp. Sure it was no “Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire”, but the characters were boring. Harrison created beautiful back stories for them, but the characters themselves had no charisma or charm. She relied too heavily on setting up Prince George’s childhood, which explained his issues when he is a teen, but diving into his past did not help with his future. The idea of animal magic is not something that I’ve seen put into words like that, but the idea is somewhat stale. Magic that is banned is not exactly new. It was a fresher take on the idea, but it wasn’t interesting enough to tempt me into reading the second and third books (“The Princess and the Bear” and “The Princess and the Snowbird”). I dislike disliking princess books. Wah, wah, wah.

MYSTERY!!! But not so much intrigue…

As I will readily admit, I am a huge fan of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series. After bewailing my lack of “Deadlocked”, the latest of the series, a coworker told me to try the Lily Bard series. This is another of Harris’s series about a young woman who lives in the southern town of Shakespeare. The first book in the series is “Shakespeare’s Landlord”.

Lily Bard is a mystery. She’s moved around for several years to try and escape a past that haunts her and finally settled in Shakespeare where she has become a cleaning woman for many local residents . Similar to Sookie, from the Sookie Stackhouse series, she is a strong willed woman working a blue collar job. Lilly practices martial arts and keeps herself separate from her neighbors. But when Lilly witnesses someone dragging away a body, she decides she can help figure out who the murderer is.  

I expected the book to have a few more references to Shakespeare or something that tied it more to the iconic bard. Instead what I found is another kick ass southern woman, but without all of the intrigue of Sookie. The only reasons I really kept going were to figure out who did it, and because it was such a short read. I don’t feel a need to continue with the series. Lilly was too off-putting, and that has a lot to do with her past, but I still could not recognize with her, which is something that’s essential for me to get into a book. There was not a lot of action either. The mystery itself was bland. Perhaps I was expecting the fun supernatural elements as in the Sookie series, but those are missing as well.

There are shelves of mysteries out there; ones with women with an ugly history looking to start over and ones with women who kick butt. I’d suggest you take a look into those in place of Lilly Bard. 

I Vant to see BLOOD!!

Hello, my name is Miss Elizabeth, and I am addicted to the Sookie Stackhouse series. It all started a couple summers ago when I decided to give the first one a shot after seeing True Blood, the HBO series that's based off of Charlaine Harris's books. After that first sinful taste of the Southern vampire series, I was hooked. Soon I was making weekly runs to Target to pick up the next book in the series and finally making frenzied requests at the library for the newest addition. Then they ran out. Where did all the Stackhouse books go? That's when I went cold turkey. But Harris finally published another one! I jumped off that wagon pretty quick, let me tell you!

"Dead Reckoning" is the 11th book in the Southern Vamp series and yet again, Miss Stackhouse has enemies trying to kill her and secrets to be revealed. I cannot tell you anymore than that or risk giving away all sorts of plots in the other books if you haven't read them. I gotta say, Sookie is not one of my favorite characters, but I do love these books. There's always something happening and more supernatural creatures waiting around the corner. Her telepathy makes her an asset to the supes around her, but her network of vampire "friends" and other protectors keeps her safe, or so she thinks. She is a woman who can handle her problems and tries her damnedest to keep her life under control while exterior forces push her into the line of fire. I appreciate her independence and her no-nonsense attitude, but when I think of her, I think of Anna Paquin (the actress who plays Sookie in True Blood) and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I know that's silly, but I just can't help it. The other characters in these books are just as fun as Sookie, if not more so. Pam, a vampire and right hand woman of Eric the viking vampire (yum), is one of my favorite characters. She's an oxymoron in the way she dresses and the way she acts. She's a bad ass Alice in Wonderland who thinks nothing of killing and has a dry, black sense of humor. Then of course Eric, viking vampire, is a hot piece who is a vampire through and through. He is typically very cold, pun intended, and keeps his hand close to his chest, but that impenetrable personality paired with his charm makes him irresistible.

Sure this is not a masterpiece of literature, but it is a FUN read!! One of the nice things about this series is that each book leads right into the next without any hassle. It's assumed you know the past stories, so chapters aren't spent catching the reader up on what's been going down. There are always new developments, but plot lines run over between books, or even come back a few books later. When I think of traditional summer reading, I think of mindless, easy books and I must say this one fits the ticket. Sure you may have to recall details from past books in the series, but there's no thinking involved. The only problem is you may find yourself becoming antisocial because all you want to do is read. Who needs friends anyways?

I truly love this series. It's my guilty reading pleasure. Admitting the problem is one step closer to recovery, right? Well if reading about vampires, fairies, werewolves, and a telepath is wrong, then I don't want to be right! Cut me a line of that and keep that wagon away. Mama's on a high.

Anne

There are those works that leave you hopeless. Once you finish rifling through its pages you're heartbroken and the rest of your day is ruined for the loss of those beautiful words. The characters, plot, writing have touched you in a way that makes it futile to even try for happiness. Your life seems simple and trivial in comparison and you wish for the world of the book back.

Welcome to my current state of being.

I have just put down "Anne of the Island", the third installment of the 'Anne of Green Gables' series. The past two books were enjoyable and I grew to love Anne, the charismatic, imaginative, charming girl of Canada. But it was the third book that blew me away. Anne goes to college to get her BA and she's truly grown up now. Her struggles, triumphs, dashed hopes, and confused romances echoed my own experiences. I connected with Anne in this book as I hadn't in the others. Her encounters with romance and her tarnished girlhood images of what romance should be resonated with me. After four years at college, her sense of loss at having to leave the place that was her home and the girls who became her best friends was almost an exact match to the despondent feelings I felt at leaving my own Alma Mater.

In Anne I find a hero, an ideal, a girl to whom I should aspire. She is good, loving, and kind yet she has faults. I want to be as decided and clear in my morals and attitudes as she is on the page. Anne has become royalty in my world of literary characters. She is a new favorite, the likes of which is rare to find in literature and the world.

An Unfortunate Read

As I review my posts, I've noticed I hardly have a bad word to say about most books. That is, of course, because I have excellent taste (insert sarcasm). Well finally I have a negative review! I'm rather excited, so get ready for my ferocious analysis!

I tried. I really did. I gave Lemony Snicket a few tries and he continues to disappoint me. Book five of the Series of Unfortunate Events, "The Austere Academy", was indeed unfortunate. I can't learn to like the characters and I spend the whole book waiting for the end when it will be done. I couldn't even finish this book. What do children see in these books? Poor orphans continuously afraid for their lives and without hope of happiness or love except between themselves. Honestly the only reason I picked this up was to figure out what happens in the end. I suppose I should have just picked up the last book, "The End", to see how things turn out. Call me old fashioned, but I like keeping things in order.

Snicket warns of the sad turn out of his characters and he really should be taken at his word. At the beginning of this book I'm pretty sure he even says don't read this if you don't like depressing stories. Why didn't I stop there?! It's because that's how they're marketed. Like they know they suck, but people like an adventure, so by saying "Do Not Enter!" it will attract people who think "I'm daring!". Again let me tell you, you don't hate yourself this much! It's not a fun adventure! Let me liken this to an owner giving a dog a slice of cheese. O how that dog loves cheese, but wait! What's that terrible taste? It's the pill that was inserted inside the cheese. That's right pup, you were fooled.

Maybe some people out there like the writing and the storytelling the books have to offer, but my recommendation is to leave them on the shelf. They look pretty, but what a waste of time! I think Young Adult/Children's literature has a lot to offer. This series makes me eat my words, and they sure do taste bitter.