A Death at Rosings: A Pride & Prejudice Variation by Renata McMann
My rating: 4 of 5 starsRounding up to 4 stars from a real rating of 3 1/2 stars.
In this variation of Pride and Prejudice we have reached the time where Mr. Darcy has proposed to Elizabeth and been rejected. He has left the letter for her and departed from Rosings. Now comes the variation. When Mr. and Mrs. Collins, Elizabeth and Maria Lucas are invited to Rosings after Darcy and the Colonel have left, Lady Catherine becomes quite ill. In fact, she dies. Thus, the gentlemen return to Rosings to assist their cousin Miss Anne de Bourgh.
Just prior to their arrival, Anne sends for Elizabeth. She begs her to stay as her friend at Rosings to assist her in the transition. Anne does not trust men, although Darcy is the most reliable, and feels she needs a strong woman with her to help her stand up to the men and to give an honest opinion about how Anne is handling things. Elizabeth agrees and moves in at Rosings. In addition, Colonel Fitzwilliam must leave due to a serious medical issue with his father the Earl, Mrs. Jenkinson has been let go, a cousin of Anne's is asked to take her place, and Kitty Bennet is invited to visit.
At the outset, Anne makes a serious mistake. Lady Catherine has been over generous in what she has left her staff. When Anne determines she will pay it out immediately, she finds a seriously large portion of them give their notice because they now have enough money to retire, buy a bit of land, etc. Now we have very few people in the entire estate of Rosings capable of running the house, tending the animals, or managing the crops. Elizabeth and Darcy become the major players in helping to get things running smoothly again. Which, of course, brings them in daily contact.
This was a fine story and a nice variation. However, Darcy and Elizabeth worked quite hard to avoid resolving their differences. I found them both pretty annoying and their thoughts to be fairly repetitive. Their attraction was well written, but they didn't act on it much and it felt like both were too, too proper and unwilling to take any risks. Wickham and Lydia in their infamous elopement provide a bit of excitement, and there is a little twist here which makes it more interesting. But, still ODC can't seem to resolve anything.
I know it is a lot easier to be a Monday morning quarterback than to write a story myself, but I thought two things could have added to this storyline: I never saw the purpose of sending Colonel Fitzwilliam away - I would have left him at Rosings to be some competition for Darcy in gaining Elizabeth's notice. Secondly, Anne was subtly working to reform Kitty, but also doing a bit of matchmaking. I would have liked to see her spend a bit of time matchmaking with Darcy and Elizabeth.
So, an interesting twist to the original, but not as well executed as I have seen for this author in her other titles. Worth reading.
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Interesting variation. I can appreciate what you're saying about this one. Sometimes conflict is kept up too long or feels contrived so the story suffers in the reader's eyes. I've read a few like that too. But glad there was enough other good things going on to make it a decent read.
ReplyDeleteGood review. I, too, read this book and enjoyed it. I rated it a 4 star read in my review.
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