Seducing Mr. Darcy | Gwyn Cready (2008)
I got this book through PaperbackSwap.com after reading (and loving) giraffedays's review. I really don't go in for romance novels, but this one had me from page two!
My Review
As fluff novels go, this one is actually rather light on the fluff -- it's a romance novel with a clear and surprisingly intriguing and complex plot. Philippa "Flip" Allison, recently divorced, goes for a massage one day and comes out with far more than she had expected. The masseuse tells her to imagine herself in her favorite book, and despite Flip's best intentions to find a steamy interlude in Venice, she finds herself in the surprisingly seductive company of Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy. They swap kisses (and a bit more), and the plot of Austen's much-beloved novel is thrown into upheaval. And flip has only twenty-four hours to get things back to normal before the changes become irrevocable.
Like any good romance novel, Seducing Mr. Darcy has its share of steamy love scenes and a nicely romantic ending. There's even the odd toss-in of magic and improbable match-making. But what excited me most was the inclusion of so many beloved characters in such odd and intriguing predicaments. Not only do we meet Mr. Darcy, seeing sides of him Austen probably never imagined (well, maybe she imagined them, but propriety would certainly never allow her to write about them!), but we also re-meet Caroline Bingley, Lydia, Sir William, and other characters from the Regency-era original. Their stories are certainly not those that Austen intended, and this romance novel turns out to be, in its way, quite a humorous parody of the strictures of nineteenth-century society.
Flip's relationship with the enigmatic Magnus Knightly is not altogether unlike Lizzie's evolving relationship with Darcy, but not so similar as to become overbearing. Flip herself is no damsel in distress, either, and even though she succumbs once or twice to many impetuousness, she tends more frequently to stand her own ground and forge her own path. This, combined with her penchant for making not quite the right decision, leads to some interesting predicaments, which in turn lead to a rather surprising series of events and a fast-paced but quite tightly constructed plot.
The writing is quite solid, really, and the author has clearly done her research into ornithology, Regency-era society, literary criticism, and many other things as well. I would go so far as to call this a thinking-woman's romance novel, for it lacks the airheadedness of other books in its genre. For me, that was a welcome change, and this was a delightfully lighthearted and even touching romance story.
Excerpts
"'Gratuitous sex is the refuge of the uninspired writer,' Dinah said with the smugness only a few gate attendants or someone who majored in English Lit can muster. 'With its figurative blank page on the matter, Pride and Prejudice allows the reader the ultimate flight of imagination.'" (p. 2)
"Once you've faced breast cancer, Eve told her, you never pass up the chance to belly laugh." (p. 2)
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Cready, Gwyn. Seducing Mr. Darcy. New York, NY: Pocket Books, 2008.