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This is one of these stories in which Jane is super jealous of Elizabeth and covets status, jewels, clothes, carriages, wealth and connections, and Elizabeth is a preachy, self-righteous piece of work who loves to lord her future status as a Marchioness over Jane… nasty feeling about this, sleazy sisterhood alert !

In the midst of a very awkward flirtation with a stranded Marquess, WHY is Eliezabeth finding time to corner Darcy in order to talk to him about Wickham of all people??? The rogue could have been so easily edited out, why insisting on keeping him in the story ??

I never understood the need to go back to the original P&P to address every point and tie every “loose ends”, when the author here has made the effort to imagine al alternate story, with different plot points, characters, roadmap, and ending !

Just WHY !?

Why is Lizzy talking about Darcy making Bingley abandon Jane while atrending the Mystery Marquess’ sickbed, while he has a fever & infected stab wounds ???

Just starting this. I had high hopes for this one because the intro says the author wrote this as a fanfiction and it had many, many beta readers.

But right at the start weird errors and inconsistencies appear >> a carriage is wrecked and overturned, and we are supposed to believe Bingley & his valet can turn it rightside up on their own; or that Lizzy starts tenderly comforting a wounded carriage driver…

80% in, they have just realized that E&D are star-crossed lovers that can’t touch each other because they trigger shattering earthquakes and dangerous tides that sink ships (ridiculous and disconnected from the previous magical setting about bushes and ancestral “boundaries”).

Only 20% left and no one really has a clue what’s going on, or what they are expected to do at all, as per sense, logic, or myth…

Everyone keeps mentioning how witty Elizabeth used to be, but clever Lizzy is not part of this story as far as we can read; every scene has been Elizabeth with a megrim, injured, insensible (fainting), or moaning her aches. There is not one scene in which she has been playful, lighthearted, or witty — Darcy cannot know she was witty, and can’t be surprised about her wit being gone or back (either way is moot)

Past 2/3 into the book and the author keeps having characters speaking in riddles; books that don’t offer answers, Elizabeth neurological decay, Darcy’s fake performative turmoil [ eye roll ]; a convoluted mix of boundaries, hedgerows, rotten grain, migraines, dizziness, a ghostly dog that does nothing, and cheap manufactured angst.

Elizabeth STILL has bad megrims 2 days out of 3, and we are treated to every excrutiating detail of her symptoms >> blurred vision, pain in her brow, pain in the back of her skull, weakness, diziness, unsteady feet, more pain, more muffled sounds, and on & on it goes for ENDLESS PAGES !

I can’t take it anymore, I hate this; can’t see the multy star ratings as honest of genuine here, be warned !

Every scene is HIGH TENSION is the most boring, inane, and artificial way ! Elizabeth’s ear rings, Darcy’s finger twitches, they are so rocused on their aches that the rest of the world is permanently out of focus = conversations around them are just noise, scenes develop with hardship and against the grain, dialogue is pure inuendo about something we are ignorant of — IRKSOME !!

Endless accounts of Elizabeth developing a mystery ear-ache when she hears Mr Collins speak. No explanation, not even humor about it !

1/5 into the tale and I am bored and sick to d e a t h of endless descriptions of the earth moving in powerful yet indiscriptible ways, strength draining out of Elizabeth or Darcy every time they lift a hand or a foot, and a magical mystery dog just watching and judging… is this story actually going somewhere or not ???

Slow pace, high tension, unnecessary build-up, a whiff of angst foe no reason. Stretching too long before explaining the magic here — too much effort setting an emotional tone, and very little magical world-building…

More chronological mistakes >> a visit to tenants is first announced as urgent, days pass by before the visit is mentioned again and still hasn’t taken place ! Poor tenants, hahahahah

Cheap mistake >> casual mention of a trip from Longbourn to Pemberley to detour through London — WHY? Meryton lies on the North Road, this author knows this, doesn’t she ??

Several scenes are retold with little tweaks and copy-pasted lines; chronological order still flawed… unless this story is a post-modernist take with time jumps and dimensional loops… a-la hopscotch !

More editing errors >> The initial story says Georgiana was taken from London on the fake excuse of a visit to the modiste, but telling staff she was going away to visit some friends in the country; now Georgiana is telling Darcy an alternate story in which Mrs. Younge takes Georgiana out of the city on the explicit pretense of visiting friends, the modiste rests forgotten…

What is the point in painting the 5 Bennet sisters are brave, compassionate saviors of Georgiana, if as soon as Darcy shows up, they 2 younger ones will regress to a stage of wild lack of manners, disregard for their suroundings, and careless unawareness of their rescued guest !

There is a problem with the chapters, an apparent shuffling that peoduced chronological (or logical) mistakes.

Elizabeth meets Wickham when he visits Longbourn. Later she encounters Darcy on the road to Meryton. In a later chapter she tells Darcy she thought he could be Wickham when she met him (FD)— this makes no sense unless the chapters got shuffled.

This happens again, plus a mixup about a carriage vs riders

Events are picking up just now [ eye roll ].

By now my attention is pretty much lost (skipping paragraphs and speed reading), and my irritation levels have peaked several times. I have zero endearment for this nonsensical story, I just want to be put out of my mysery here !

It takes about a week on the road for Elizabeth to travel from Longbourn to London — what a joke! This is nothing but a cheap, artificial device to plot a forced proximity scenario for Darcy and Elizabeth, in which Darcy pretty much hates Miss Bennet and is suspicious of her persona, mainly because she manages to delay his desired meeting with Gerogiana (I would hate Elizabeth too if tampered with in this way).

1/3 into this and it’s nothing short of reader torture !!! The story is going nowhere. Repetitive, circular, aggravating, boring, irritating… unpleasant !

20% in and the main characters are still stuck (for days) at an inn during a snow storn. Boring and dragging… all existing tension involves firewood and blanket hoarding. Boring and unrelated to the supposed story about a Princes.

Is the actual story going to start at some point ??

There are rules governing Peerage & Courtesy Titles in Regency Great Britain; it takes some education to get them just right, and it gets some subtle nuance to insert them successfully into a story with heavy class interactions… Let’s say, this one is not it !

I have been reading fanfics by this author and enjoyed her writing style & rythm.

This work rings a but different from others; a tad bit less polished, and this particular Lizzy is insufferable !

I find it ridiculous when authors get into Wickham’s villanous mind as he has a creepy internal dialogue where he delves into every perverse detail about his plans for REVENGE

It’s a long-ish format, over 1/3 in, and the constant repetition of Lizzie’s regrets, her circular struggles with her conscience, get boring fast! Very frustrating; we were told once, twice… it gets old by the 10th or 11th time [ eye roll ]

Years and years of a cold, emotionally dead Darcy, putting “duty” first and painfully neglecting and hurting Georgiana year after year, chapter aftet chapter. He is not a good brother, not even a good master (as Mrs Reynolds said in P&P), he is a self-indulgent stoic (a very real oxymoron there).

10% in and we are treated to an excrutiating tale about how Darcy neglects and emotionally abuses Georgiana out of “duty” and misplaced trauma — What in the world ?!???!

What’s the point of trying to write a variation, when the author keeps bringing up the original ploinr again and again, dragging it back kicking and screaming, to fit a performative list of landmarks, which are dettached from the proposed variation story !

Disappointing.

This book is astonishingly slow and dragging. Pages and pages of boring fillers that serve no purpose, that are not descriptive or poetic, just hollow fillers! I have no words… this is my third attempt to pick it up and see if I make a dent ln it…

No rythm, too rushed, whole chunks of the story are skipped over and summarised, so we only get disconnected snippets spanning those 16 days mentioned in the title.

We don’t even get one full day, and every character but the main couple, conveniently fades away (except maybe Mrs Gaediner & Georgiana who get a tad more artention).