Faith, Hope, & Charity

I finished reading the Fitzwilliam Darcy trilogy sometime in January and just remembered to pass along my impressions of these books by Pamela Aidan. The author worked for seven years or more on these three novels~ expertly weaving in Jane Austen's characters with new characters of her own making. The first book, An Assembly Such As This, was a detailed introduction to Darcy and his feelings as he meets & resists Elizabeth Bennett. Reading it from Darcy's perspective made it even funnier because he is just so pompous! He really was just as bad as Elizabeth described him. The second book in the trilogy, Duty and Desire took me a long time to get through. It seemed as if it deviated too much from Austen's world as it incorporated fantastical possibilities of how Darcy spent his time away from Netherfield. He meets and convives with very sketchy characters who end up trying to screw him over. Without giving anything away, it provides a plausible possibility of his whereabouts but it was not my favorite. The last book, however, I could not stop reading. Darcy goes through a compelete turnaround after Elizabeth rejects him & terribly wounds his pride. Rather than forgetting about it & showing no remorse, he goes into a kind of pensitive depression and comes out of it revived, resolving to change and become the man he ought to be: a man worthy of Elizabeth Benett. Bottom line: Read these books! Let me know what you think!