You know when I found a fan novel about Pride and Prejudice villain Caroline Bingley falling in love and changing her evil ways, I HAD to read it.

In general I LOVE "Redeeming the Villain" spin-offs, and Ms. Fairview's well-researched and true-to-period tale had all the makings of a great story. Her characters (generally) speak and behave appropriately for the time (i.e., no heavy petting in the hall closet, I do so apologize to most of my favorite romance writers!), and the original character introduced - Robert Darcy, Fitzwiliam Darcy's cousin who lives in Boston - is very likable, believable, and a great match to the fiercely snobbish prude we all know and expect from Caroline Bingley. However, this Caroline Bingley does not make an appearance in the novel at all. Instead of just owning up to Caroline's past villainy (as shown in Pride and Prejudice) and letting her growing relationship with Robert Darcy show her how to be a better person, Ms. Fairview completely glosses over Caroline's bad behavior and instead passes all the blame for it onto her sister, Louisa. This new-and-improved Caroline hardly ever looks down her nose, offers a catty retort, or teases anyone at all. She also conveniently forgets being desperately in love with Fitzwilliam Darcy and being insanely jealous of Elizabeth Bennett (now Elizabeth Darcy in this novel) very soon into the story. While we'd love for Caroline to turn into this kind of person, you can't deny that she was a not-so-nice person to begin with, and I really would have liked to see her transformation progress more gradually, a la Jane Austen's "Emma". It was painfully obvious to me that this would-be Caroline was just an original character of Ms. Fairview's invention, and as such I would have preferred to read about her in an original fiction story. You have a lot of talent, Ms. Fairview, and your skillful writing style is the only reason I'm giving this novel three stars, because as far as capturing Caroline Bingley's character - I think you fell short.