Such Novel Notions

A Pride and Prejudice Variation

By: Eselle Teays

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

On seeing Mr. Darcy frowning at this pronouncement, Elizabeth plucked up her courage and continued firmly, “If said woman desires a second proposal, she must disregard the indignity so abhorrent to his feelings and propose herself. Mr. Darcy, will you accept my hand in marriage?”

• Prologue, Such Novel Notions

What has induced Elizabeth Bennet to do something so shocking just three weeks after her vehement and cruel rejection of this same man’s offer of marriage in Hunsford?

While she is still reeling from the indisputable truths disclosed in the letter Mr. Darcy handed to her the morning after the proposal, Miss de Bourgh waylays her and begs her for help. Elizabeth is to deliver a letter to Lord Fitzwilliam, the executor of her father’s will. However, the Earl must receive the letter before her twenty-seventh birthday just five days away, or else her mother, Lady Catherine, would usurp her birthright as the rightful mistress of Rosings. Thus begins the adventure. Along the way, the two young ladies become fast friends, and Miss de Bourgh, freed from the talons of her despotic mother and using her own unique brand of problem-solving acumen, handily dispatches villains, turns the Bennet sisters into heiresses, and changes the lives of many others whose paths intersect hers to the satisfaction of all – well, perhaps not the villains. What is the secret to her success? It is all about the novels she loves. Elizabeth, through her joint efforts with Mr. Darcy to assist Anne, comes to see the gentleman in a new light. With her impetuous nature, it is inevitable that she should do something audacious to attain her happily ever after.

In this engaging and heart-warming Regency tale with the whole cast of our beloved characters in an original plot, the author strives to keep the characters as true to canon as possible excepting Anne de Bourgh, who, though retaining the frail and colorless exterior as in canon, is anything but. The novels she favors are not the Gothic variety so often used in the plots of stories of and about that period – Jane Austen used such a plot device in Northanger Abbey. Let us just say that she chooses her reading materials well. The reader does not need to have read these novels which were, in fact, renowned during that time period for depicting life vividly and accurately. Anne’s explanations of her actions according to her understanding of the novels are quite self-evident.

Just like the original Pride and Prejudice, this story is relatively low angst but has its fair share of drama and twists, not to mention eventful rides in phaetons.

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Ok but excessively long

Interesting expansion of the characters. Wholesale reinvention of Anne DeBourge-a little excessive. Horrible AI narration. All this
shows the strengths of Austen’s original characters..

Interesting Variation. VV not Terrible

I dislike Virtual Voice and tend to skip past all audiobooks using it, but unlike most VV books, this one had good reviews so I tried it. Don’t know if the AI has improved since VV was first introduced, but in this book it wasn’t as distracting, aggravating or intolerable as my initial experience. I still dislike the lack of inflection, warmth etc. as well as mispronunciations. The story was interesting enough but I found my attention wandering.

Surprised

This was a much better story than I expected. It would have been much better with a human narrator that could pronounce Rosings correctly and tell the difference between other words that shouldn’t be pronounced phonetically in English because they have a French base.

Engaging

Anne's character was fantastic as well as the representation of everyone else in the story. Great development and plot.

Engaging story

This was a well written book. I recognized Jane Austin s characters in Lizzy, Jane, Mira Bennett and Lydia. The others were interesting and furthered the story.