Book: Me and Mr Darcy
Author: Alexandra Potter
Pages: 352 (Paperback)
Publisher: Hodder
Published: June 28, 2007
Goodreads Synopsis:
After a string of disastrous relationships, Emily Albright has had it with modern men.
She’d rather curl up with Pride and Prejudice and step into a time where men were honorable and strode across fields in breeches, their damp shirts clinging to their chests. The men she meets are more into pleated trousers, two-timing and internet porn.
So when her best friend invites her to Mexico for a week of margaritas and manhunting, Emily books a guided tour of Jane Austen country instead.
There are no dream men here. The coach is full of pensioners, apart from one Spike Hargreaves, a foul-tempered journalist writing a piece on why most women would love to date Mr Darcy.
But then she walks into a room and finds herself face-to-face with Darcy himself. And every woman’s fantasy suddenly becomes one woman’s reality…
My Review:
I’m normally a fan of Alexandra Potter and since I’m also a huge Pride and Prejudice nerd I thought, nothing could go wrong. But I was disappointed. I thought this was going to be a super fun book à la “Lost in Austen”, but it was a weird mix of reality and fiction and I’m still not sure what actually happened. So, let’s see. We have this American woman (Emily) who works in this super cute bookshop with her best friend and somehow there’s also this friend’s flatmate and they are married, but only so he can get his green card. But both of those characters aren’t really important to the story. Okay, so this woman flies over to Great Britain over New Year’s on a Jane Austen tour, where they do lots of sight seeing. But the first thing Emily notices when she gets off the plane is everyone being different from the people in America and everyone is using slang words she doesn’t understand and I just couldn’t understand that. I mean, didn’t she know that before? And why would she think words such as “bloke” are funny? Well, anyways she gets on the tour bus and it’s full of old women. And this hot reporter who has to write a text for his newspaper about this tour. And of course, he’s going to be the love interest. I mean, that was clear and it would have been a really cute love story because it is based on the romance from Pride and Prejudice, we have all the characters but in a modern setting. And the reader notices that, of course, but Emily learns it towards the end when the drama happens. This was really fun to read, especially since because everything worked out good and the characters interacted well with each other and it really fit.
But then somehow Mr Darcy comes alive, or she slips into the novel of Pride and Prejudice or it’s a parallel world, I do not know, but Emily meets Mr Darcy. And before falling for the reporter, she falls for Mr Darcy, because come on, who wouldn’t fall for Mr Darcy? But this Darcy is nothing like the Jane-Austen-Darcy, but a whole other character. And then he also falls in love with Emily? I mean, in the end it makes sense how this fits in P&P, but it still makes no sense why Emily sees Darcy and nobody else does (except for Jane Austen who also comes back from the dead to be the tour guide or something?). This part of the story was just unnecessary. The plot would have worked much better if it was less confusing and when the author would just have left the Austen characters out of it.
Nevertheless did I like the writing style. I really love Alexandra Potter’s style, it’s so easy and enjoyable. But unfortunately the book was just not for me.
Rating:
★★/5
