Mr. Darcy's Enchantment: A Pride & Prejudice Variation in Austen Variations

Mar 20, 2021 Anne Wrightwell rated it really liked it

Shelves: pride-prejudice-stories, p-p-fantasy

WARNING: SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.

I'm a big fan of Abigail Reynolds. She's written a lot of Pride and Prejudice variations and this is one of the more extreme ones. It's a fantasy variation. I like fantasy so was excited to find this one. There's not too many of Pride and Prejudice fantasies around compared to the hundreds of sequels and variations.

I had the audiobook version of this, which was pretty good although it irritated me a little that the Fey all had Irish accents. I'd have thought Welsh w WARNING: SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.

I'm a big fan of Abigail Reynolds. She's written a lot of Pride and Prejudice variations and this is one of the more extreme ones. It's a fantasy variation. I like fantasy so was excited to find this one. There's not too many of Pride and Prejudice fantasies around compared to the hundreds of sequels and variations.

I had the audiobook version of this, which was pretty good although it irritated me a little that the Fey all had Irish accents. I'd have thought Welsh would have been more appropriate but a minor point.

The story is told from the viewpoint of Elizabeth and Darcy with alternating chapters.

Abigail Reynolds clearly did a lot of world building for this novel and thought a lot about how things would work, which I appreciated. For example, all humans can see the fey when children but usually lose it once they hit puberty. Elizabeth Bennet is one of the few adults who can still see the fey.

Elizabeth is a Wise Woman, a healer. She has to hide her magic because women are not allowed to use magic and if they are caught doing so, have a binding spell put on them which basically makes them stupid. Elizabeth lives in terror of this. (It turns out later that Mrs Bennet had a binding spell put on her not long after she got married and that's the reason she's the way she is. I thought that was very clever of the author). Elizabeth thinks Mr Darcy is interested in her because he suspects she has magic, not realising he's interested in her in a romantic way. I do think this version of Elizabeth seems rather emotional, she bursts into tears quite a few times, which just didn’t seem right to me.

If you thought Lady Catherine de Bourgh was an unpleasant character in Pride and Prejudice, she’s a hundred times worse in Mr Darcy’s Enchantment. Far from being grateful to Elizabeth for healing her from elfshot, she orders Mr Collins to throw her out of the parsonage for being a witch even though Lady Catherine has magic herself. You learn that she wanted her daughter Anne to be put under a binding spell. And later on, we discover that Anne is not really her daughter but only Sir Lewis de Bourgh’s and an unknown woman. That I did find implausible. I couldn’t imagine someone like Lady Catherine obediently raising her husband’s bastard. In the end, it turns out that Lady Catherine is a sorceress who dabbles in black magic and she does get her come-uppance.

Mr Collins too is much nastier than in Pride and Prejudice e.g. throwing Elizabeth out of his house without even allowing her to get her purse so she has money for her journey home. You later discover that he’s been under a spell of obedience cast by Lady Catherine but I found it hard to forgive him, especially as he blames Charlotte as well.

I didn’t think much of Charlotte for not sticking up for Elizabeth or even making sure she got her money when Mr Collins throws her out of his house for being a witch. I also so wanted Elizabeth to give Mr Collins a mouthful when he did this and was disappointed by her tame reaction.

I enjoyed the novel although in my opinion the ending was “machina ex deus” and rather contrived. But it’s great to read a fantasy Pride and Prejudice fiction novel. ...more

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Dec 04, 2020 Craftyhj rated it it was amazing

Shelves: yes, own-copy, audio, fantasy-jaff, zz2022jaff

A gem of a book.

A big departure from the majority of Pride and Prejudice variations, this journey into Faerie is a gripping read with both familiar and new characters. This is beautifully crafted and highly recommended.

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