Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange

As promised, here is my review of the recently released Mr. Darcy, Vampyre. As those of you who are familiar with my blog, and who may have read my recent reviews of Pride and Prejudice sequels probably already know, the addition of “vampire” to the title of any book significantly raises my excitement level. There’s just something about the dark side of fiction that really piques my interest, and seeing this take on a classic work of fiction really makes my day :)

So, to say that I was excited when I was offered to the opportunity to review Amanda Grange’s newest release is an understatement, and I must admit that that when the book arrived in the mail, I was waiting impatiently to get my fix. I have to start off by saying that I loved the pacing and the tone of the book; it was very much in sync with Austen’s original, which is something that I always look for when reading sequels written by new or alternate authors.

As most of you must already suspect, in Mr. Darcy, Vampyre, our old friend Mr. Darcy is harboring a deep, dark secret. (Can you guess what it is?) The book begins just before Pride and Prejudice left off – briefly chronicling Lizzy’s wedding day, and then moving on to her wedding night and subsequent wedding trip. One of the things that struck me about this book was the lack of intimacy between Lizzy and Darcy. While it is rather shrugged off in the book, most new brides would (I believe) have been more put off by such a lack of attention by their new husband. While it was certainly a different time then, Lizzy was a different kind of girl, and I felt that she was uncharacteristically shy in this aspect.

As Mr. Darcy, Vampyre progresses, we follow the newlywed Mr. and Mrs. Darcy across Europe as the former struggles against his curse and works diligently to hide it from his new bride and the latter faces one bizarrely frightening encounter with long-lost Darcy relatives after another and works stridently to ignore the fact that her beloved husband has not yet visited their marriage bed.

While I can’t really say much more about Mr. Darcy, Vampyre without becoming a spoiler, I will say that I rather enjoyed it from cover to cover. While there were some things that I would have changed, that is true of virtually any book I have ever read. My biggest problem of all was with the way the book ended. Of course, I can’t really get into that here. However, if you read the book, you will probably know exactly what I am referring to. All in all, this was a 3 ½ star read as far as paranormal fiction goes, and a 4 star Pride and Prejudice sequel. Depending on your literary cup o’tea, you will probably find this one quite enjoyable :P