Fault or Virtue: Pride and Prejudice Re-Imagined

by April Karber

Fault or Virtue explores what would have happened if Elizabeth had immediately confronted Darcy about his conduct at the Meryton Assembly. With their opinions out in the open, Darcy and Elizabeth are allowed to form a somewhat friendly acquaintance during his time in Hertfordshire, ending when Mr. Wickham suggests that Darcy intends to make Elizabeth his mistress since duty to his family and station would not allow him to marry her. Though Elizabeth attempts to separate herself from Darcy, she is forced to accompany her sister Jane to London in order to reunite with Mr. Bingley and is again thrust into Darcy’s company causing more misunderstandings to arise.

Genres: Historical, Romance

235 pages, ebook

First published February 16, 2013

Reviews

[Sheila Majczan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story needs a lot of editing: besides the misspellings, poor grammar or wrong usage, etc. there is the glaring fact that the author writes of Elizabeth introducing her Aunt & Uncle Gardiner to Darcy late in the story when the author wrote of Darcy and Bingley visiting in the Gardiner house in London earlier. The author also changes scenes and speaker with no warnings...not even those little stars between passages.

We read of ODC doing the one step forward and then two backwards in their relationship. Elizabeth does confront Darcy very early about his attitude and his words at the assembly and they forward their relationship after that confrontation. He even asks others as to how he has acted and when they confirm her opinions he makes some changes. Darcy sees Elizabeth as so very unique from all the other women in society: not only does she not fawn all over him, i.e., like Caroline, but she also can carry on a decent conversation with wit and teasing.

When he goes back to London to interview candidates for a companion for Georgiana, Caroline would have Elizabeth believe it is for other reasons. That happens again when Darcy and Bingley decide to go to London for 2 weeks to allow a cooling off period so as to determine the depths of their feelings. Mrs. Bennet then sends both sisters to Gracechurch Street and Elizabeth insists on a second visit to Caroline as she snubs Jane by not returning her call. Darcy and Charles walk in.

Darcy does kiss Elizabeth at different times in the story but does not follow up as to his feelings. He kisses and walks away? Elizabeth can't believe he has honorable intentions, especially as she has been warned by Wickham that Darcy can only want her as his mistress.

Elizabeth does become friends with Darcy and it is this friendship (although Darcy questions if that is all he wants) that has Elizabeth with some doubts about the truthfulness of Wickham's story and his warning.

This story brings it all to a head when the newlyweds insist along with Georgiana and Darcy that Elizabeth accompany them on the first part of their honeymoon which they will spend at Pemberley while looking for an estate there.

The addition of the finding of a "little red book" which Darcy tells Elizabeth not to read seemed superfluous. Although I am sure it was meant as a tease it was rather an empty promise of adding some passion...when...who knows? as the end came.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this novel, Elizabeth quickly confronts Darcy about not only his slight against her but also his attitude towards all of Meryton. Darcy didn't realize how he was perceived and in his shock addresses Bingley about it and then gauges Mrs. Bennets behaviour towards him as confirmation of Elizabeth's and all of Merytons opinion of him. Darcy described it well to his cousin when he explained how Elizabeth is a zealous studier of character and that "it took her less than five minutes to sketch that of mine and I have been trying to erase that impression ever since." So from early on in their acquaintance Darcy tries to rectify things with Elizabeth thus her pride doesn't blind his to his attractive face or their great conversations and debates which allow Elizabeth to get to know Darcy well before he even leaves to London. Thus she is not as drawn into Wickhams account until he implies she would be nothing more than Darcy's mistress. Stolen kisses though sweet timed are not true to Darcy's nature. My lower rating had to do with the writing style, lack of editing, and the un-gentleman-like behavior of Darcy for that era towards Elizabeth pre and post engagement. The stolen kisses pre-engagement were good story plots to help us read Elizabeth's conflicting thoughts and feelings. But the description of the kisses post-engagement were not proper gentlemanly behaviour for that era. Good potential once edited correctly.

[Kimberly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the premise, and I enjoyed some of the discussions. A lot of the book felt rushed, however - skipping from one important scene to another.

I did find the writing a little disjointed, but that might be because the passage of time wasn't really addressed well. In between a couple of chapters we were told that nearly a year had passed (for example), but there was no feeling of it happening.

It was still a nice read, and I look forward to reading other variations by this author.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The description of the book does a decent job explaining the plot so I will not exhaustively do that here. Essentially, Darcy apologizes to Elizabeth for his "tolerable" comment sooner. Then they enter into a friendship of sorts. But, what bothered me was that the Darcy in this book was almost a rake. He sneaks a couple of kisses from Elizabeth (seriously, how the heck did that happen without her slapping him is beyond me). Both times, there is no understanding between them. The plot follows cannon in that we end up at Rosings and also at Pemberly. The proposal scene confused me. It seemed like they were actually discussing and refuting each other's misunderstanding and then all of a sudden Darcy disappears. If he was in love with Elizabeth and they were talking openly why not resolve the issues then. The character just did not make sense. Then later, after Jane and Bingley wed and everyone is at Pemberley, it takes a REALLY long time for ODC to come to an understanding. Then once they did, it Darcy seemed to be all over Elizabeth (rake again). So, i guess I just didn't understand the characters in this book nor the plot. The writing was ok and there were many grammatical issues. I have read other books from this author that I found more enjoyable.

[Louise Sparrow · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book might have been ok if I wasn’t familiar with the original, but the author’s attempts to re-write some well-known scenes in her own words and with her own interpretations of the characters, is somewhere between tedious and painful. There is always a risk in such a comparison of course but in this case the writing did not approach the skill of the original.

Whilst this was an alternative version some of it didn’t diverge so much as get re-arranged, while other parts seemed very out of character so that the whole was more confused than anything. When it finally did begin to cover new ground it was better, but still should have been published for free on a fanfic site and not sold as work of literature in its own right.

In all fairness however, it was not the worst book I have read or even the worst version of P&P (that honour will likely always belong to the Zombie one,) even with Elizabeth and Darcy unable to entirely keep their hands off one another.

[Sam H. · Rating 1 out of 5]

sigh, don't why I bothered finishing this, the end was even worse than the beginning...

[Kimbelle Pease · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't shocked at the tale as others, and I wasn't put off as others were upset. The tale was as the title claims, imaginative and interesting. While I was pleased with most of the ways the author took the characters, I found that I was even more pleased with the way she moved them around the familiar places. A couple of points were rushed, but it did little to change the pleasure of the tale. Worth reading for the different path of the main couple everyone hopes will come together, more full of desire and allowing a bit to bleed through, more human. Glad I read it!

[Mary Lou · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could have been good but I think she needed a good editor to help her flesh the story out a bit more, and maintain paragraph structure - especially in conversation between characters. Overall not horrible but nothing to new or exciting either.

[Anita Sobreira · Rating 3 out of 5]

i love pride and prejudices what-if..

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

The what-if idea is not bad, but the book would benefit from a professional editing.