#Jane Austen Retelling

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb:

An atmospheric, haunting, romantasy inspired by Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, set in Regency era England about two sisters fighting to hold on to their manor while deadly monsters prowl along its perimeters—perfect for fans of House of Salt and Sorrows and Anatomy: A Love Story.

Merrick Darling’s life as daughter of the Manor Lord of Sussex is better than most. Unlike the commoners, she is immune to the toxic fog that encroached on England generations earlier. She will never become a Phantom—one of the monstrous creatures that stalk her province’s borders—and as long as the fires burn to hold them back, her safety is ensured. She wants for nothing, yet she will never inherit her family’s Manor. She must marry smartly or live at the kindness of her elder sister, Essie.

Everything is turned on its head, though, when Merrick’s father dies suddenly. Torn from her New London society life of ball gowns and parties, Merrick must travel back to her childhood home, the Darling estate of Norland House, and what she finds there is bewildering. Once strong and capable, Essie is withdrawn and frightened—and with good cause. A recent string of attacks along the province’s borders has turned their formerly bucolic countryside into a terrifying and unpredictable landscape. The fog is closing in and the fires aren’t holding, which makes Merrick and Essie vulnerable in more ways than one. Because the Phantoms are far from the only monsters in Merrick’s world, and the other eleven Manor Lords are always watching for weakness.

Revealing her and her sister’s current state to the rest of the Manors is out of the question, but when Essie goes missing, it’s clear that Merrick needs help. Only, who can she trust when everyone seems to be scheming, and when all she holds true feels like it’s slipping right out of her grasp?

Review:

A gothic historical fantasy romance inspired by Sense and Sensibility complete with deadly fog monsters, manor politics, and forbidden romance. Merrick Darling is the daughter of the Manor Lord of Sussex and all her life she's been pitted against her sister to inherit the title of Manor Lord, yet when her father tells her she'll never inherit it she leaves in hopes of finding a marriage that will help her. She lives in an England where there is a mysterious fog that turns people into Phantoms, monstrous creatures that are barely being contained. The Manor Lords must protect the lands and keep these monsters out... but things are only going to get worse when Merrick's father suddenly dies and Merrick is forced to return home. Merrick returns home to find that her sister has become withdrawn and frightened and the fog is beginning to close in. More people are being turned and Merrick knows things are only going to get worse. When her sister is kidnapped, Merrick is determined to find her but when she gets the truth will she be able to handle it? Merrick must also deal with three different suitors... one who is perfect on paper, one who has a secret past connected to her sister, and one who is wholly not suited for her yet she can't help being drawn to. Who will she end up with? This was definitely a unique twist on the classic Jane Austen story and I loved the incorporation of a gothic/fantasy into the story. The romance was light and the mystery had a lot of fun twist and turns. This was a really fun read for the autumn season and one I'd recommend for anyone looking for a gothic fantasy!

Release Date: September 3, 2024

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Random House Children's | Delacorte Press for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[abe-ma]

Manslaughter Park by Tirzah Price Review

Be warned, I hated it. 1/5 stars as a murder mystery, and a 0/5 as a retelling. 

[averymorstan]

How do we feel about a sapphic Persuasion retelling set in a small town bowling alley with added vampires for spice? Because I'm feeling very good.

[chardwic]

Books I've Read in 2023: Pride and Premeditation by Tirzah Price

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a brilliant idea, conceived and executed by a clever young woman, must be claimed by a man.”

[quirkycatsfatstacks]

Review: The States by Norah Woodsy

Author: Norah WoodsyReleased: April 30, 2024Received: ARC Summary: Tildy Sullivan is the perpetual middle child. She may come from an elite Manhattan family, but she knows what it’s like to feel left on the outside. Perhaps that’s why her family’s financial decline doesn’t feel so shocking to her. While the family’s financial woes don’t weigh on Tildy, something else does. The biggest regret…

[fangirlx]

#FridayReads - Eden Appiah-Kubi's Her Own Happiness

This week’s pick included a quick discussion about Tess of the D’Ubervilles that I couldn’t make fit in my review. However, I still want y’all to know that I agree with any and all slander about that horrible book. In Her Own Happiness, Maya Davis is caught unaware as her dream life crumbles around her. Now, heading back to her parent’s house with her best friend, Ant, in tow, Maya has to…

[ezichiny]

Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne

TITLE: Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne My rating: 4 of 5 stars Genre: Modern retelling, contemporary romance, Jane Austen retelling, diverse romance Format: Paperback (401 pages) Published: November 15, 2022 by Berkeley Blurb: Liza B–The Only DJ That Gives a Jam—wants to take her neighborhood back from the soulless property developer dropping unaffordable condos on every street corner in DC. But…

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Favorite niche book genre

[bethanydelleman]

so, this is a very specific question but I LOVE your blog, your takes are so well articulated and you are so knowledgeable on Austen that I wanted to hear your opinion on this.

so everyone knows that emma is the easiest austen novel to read as queer right? if you had to direct/write a modern gay emma adaptation which route would you take? lesbian emma paired w harriet (seems to be the most common take) with jane (less common but her descriptions of her were something else) or genderbent knightley? again this is v specific but I've been thinking of writing an au like that since forever and your input would be amazing:)

Hello and thank you! I actually have a very specific answer to this one because I have an unfinished fan fiction about a queer version of Emma. It's Regency so I won't modernize it. So here is what I would do:

Jane Fairfax is bisexual. Despite not liking Emma very much, they were together as teenagers before Jane stopped visiting home for two years. Jane then falls for Frank, which Emma thinks is fake because...

Emma is a lesbian.

Harriet is straight and boy-crazy. Emma and her don't have any relationship beyond being friends. (I don't like the power/intelligence imbalance here, Jane feels more equal to Emma)

Mr. Knightley is asexual and sex-repulsed. He has never married because he knows it would cause social harm for his wife to never have children because of him. He loves Emma, but didn't think their marriage was possible.

The story basically follows canon but with very different motives. Emma is trying to break up Jane & Frank out of the misguided idea that Jane can't love Frank, so she's saving him from a mercenary marriage. Jane loves Emma, but cannot bring herself to live as her "companion" with no equality of fortune. After Jane and Frank's engagement is announced and Emma is heartbroken, Mr. Knightley offers as companionship marriage to Emma, who has realized that he is the real person she can't survive without. They live together as best friends. Mr. Knightley and Emma adopt one of their nephews as their heir.

30 years later, the widowed Jane Churchill moves back to Highbury and either Mr. Knightley has also passed on or he's okay with his wife having a lover.

[creativelycomplex]

Reading a Loustat fanfic based on Jane Austen’s Emma, and man when Louis said the famous quote I had to pause and walk around to calm myself down.

[fictionadventurer]

I'm sorry, but if you call Fanny Price (or any female character) insipid, I don't want to hear anything else you have to say.

[clonerightsagenda]

It started with that dead guy next door book but there has been a huge boom in 'book titles that make me think the love interest will be some type of Creature but it's just a boring dude who owns a small business or whatever. but there's also a Creature. peripherally.' *Chuck Tingle voice* Not pounded in the ass by the undead entity haunting my home because a) they are incorporeal and b) they are not the love interest probably because they're incorporeal and everyone wants their romance novels to be [spicy/insert whatever juvenile term we're using this week instead of just saying it has sex in it]. False advertising and cowardice.

[averymorstan]

So my spring book is a Jane Austen retelling set in the Quaint City After Dark universe. Bowling alleys, vampires, what could possibly go wrong. Except the part where I have a character that is named Frankie in that universe and it never occurred to me that a Frankie and a Freddie could possibly be confusing? So I've now had to rename one of the mains. But it's okay, I love Freddie's new name.

I also was looking into how long it takes to be a captain in the Navy and it's like, 20 or more years ... but I'm wondering if that's a problem. Like, I do like to write for the late 30's early 40's audience, so is it okay if the heroine has waited 20 years for her love instead of like, 7?

[misscrawfords]

I'm reading Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne, a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice and I'm struggling.

I actually find what Payne has done with the characters and setting really interesting and there are some touches I really like, especially turning Mary into Maurice - an "activist" who changes his activism regularly and lectures others on what they should be doing. (Any interpretation of Mary that isn't "misunderstood, shy, nerd girl who isn't-like-other-girls and is actually just like me, a misunderstood, shy, over-looked nerd girl" gets a positive vote from me.)

However, I really very much dislike her interpretation of Darcy (Dorsey) and Elizabeth (Liza)'s relationship and that is... kinda crucial!

It's waaaaaay over sexualised. Like, I get this is a romance book, but, like, I'm reading along enjoying the story and plot and then suddenly Dorsey is thinking about burying himself in Liza's breasts and I'm like "wooaah!" It's like it's impossible for the author to show them having feelings for each other without it being explicit and I find that out of place both with the source material and with the rest of the narrative.

Secondly, it is sexual... immediately. It commits the cardinal sin of saying "Darcy and Lizzy were hot for each other from the start and all the tension is ~ s e x u a l tension". The 2005 abomination does this too with the near kiss in the rain. And pretty much every single P&P inspired enemies-to-lovers narrative out there does it too. The problem is... this is a really, really inaccurate interpretation of the original book. Darcy is, admittedly, attracted to Elizabeth very quickly. Something that he manages to show not at all to anybody. Only Caroline Bingley, who is intensely interested in Darcy's romantic feelings, spots it. Later on, arch observer Charlotte and good friend Col Fitz also suspect something but by this point in Rosings Darcy has given into his feelings and is trying, albeit terribly, to court Elizabeth. Not that she notices. Darcy is completely able to conceal his sexual attraction to Elizabeth from everyone who isn't thinking about Darcy sexually. He is not quite so able to conceal his romantic interest later on. But crucially, at no point does Elizabeth notice a thing. She has LITERALLY NO IDEA. This is because Elizabeth has no concept of Darcy as a romantic prospect for her at all. She laughs at thinking what a good match he'd be for Anne de Bourgh, a probably sexless in appearance invalid. She doesn't hate him in a ~sexy~ way, she just really does not like him and does not consider him as a romantic option.

If Elizabeth is aware that Darcy has the hots for her, this changes the dynamic completely. If she is actually attracted to him in the first part of the story, that changes the dynamic completely. And both of these changes alter and potentially cheapen Elizabeth's character. If she is aware on some level that Darcy likes her and is interested in her, then she ends up looking like an idiot when the first proposal comes around. Or she ends up looking coy and like she is actually flirting with him. Yes, there is banter but Elizabeth is not consciously flirting or trying to attract him! Elizabeth spends the whole first part of the novel with a crush on Wickham. Austen is perfectly capable to showing to the audience without needing modern explicit language that a character has the hots for another character. Elizabeth fancies Wickham, not Darcy! As the meme goes, Darcy and Elizabeth are experiencing two very different kinds of tension! That's part of the comedy. And if Elizabeth is aware that she is attracted to Darcy, it just becomes a different story, and a less interesting one. Elizabeth becomes yet another romance novel heroine who likes the "bad boy" and tries to persuade herself not to, until the tension is sooooo strong and she ~snaps.

But one of the major points is that Elizabeth doesn't like bad boys! She falls for (well, crushes on) Wickham because she thinks he's good. She dislikes Darcy because she thinks he's bad. She only starts to consider Darcy positively when she understands and sees for herself the truth of his character. That is what she finds attractive, not him being a buttoned up jerk! "One has all the goodness, the other all the appearance of it." That is central to P&P's story and its message.

Unfortunately, in the aims of writing a "romance" novel, Pride and Protest gives us heaving busoms and erections and almost-kisses and therefore completely destroys my interest in Dorsey and Liza's relationship at the same time as well as finding it just a bit tasteless because it feels like there are two stories going on: an interesting exploration of how the context and characters of P&P would work in a highly politised and racially diverse modern USA - and a very generic romance novel story which doesn't do either Darcy and Elizabeth justice. A shame.

It does make me wonder about how to update Austen's novels in terms of sex. Because obviously one of the major changes between the 1810s and now is that having extra-marital sex is totally normal and people date and break up without social repercussions. So unless you are setting the update in a community where that is not the case, you've got to deal with sex being freely on offer. I guess there are different ways around it but I think if how you deal with sex means that the fundamental beats of the narrative and character development are changed, then something's gone wrong somehow. And I feel that Elizabeth's total obliviousness to Darcy having any positive feelings towards her at all until the moment he proposes to her is a crucial part of the plot and a source of unending humour.

[steelycunt]

‘gay retelling of a classic!’ ‘feminist sapphic twist on this greek myth!’ why don’t you write a better book than that. i think we deserve better books than that

[apotheosphorus]

pride and prejudice but instead of mr darcy and elizabeth its ms bingley and elizabeth and its a lesbian slow burn enemies to lovers where theyre grappling with their unspoken gay feelings against all the odds while trying to deal with the marriage mart being foisted upon them