Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange

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A test of love that will take them to hell and back...
December 1802
My hand is trembling as I write this letter. My nerves are in tatters and I am so altered that I believe you would not recognize me. The past two months have been a nightmarish whirl of strange and disturbing circumstances, and the future...
I am afraid.
If anything happens to me, remember that I love you and that my spirit will always be with you, though we may never see each other again. The world is a cold and frightening place where nothing is what it seems.
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This book is in many ways something I want to throw to the ground and stomp on. It starts where Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and takes a twist down a dark alley.

Ever mysterious Mr. Darcy takes his newly wedded wife, Elizabeth, on a honeymoon to travel around Europe, however, nothing is as she would have hoped for. He's distant and cold and she grows more and more confused and scared as the trip goes on.

I did think the ending was rather ridiculous to be perfectly honest, and throughout the book we move further and further away from the feel of a sequel to a classic and on to a feel of something more fragmented.

It is ultimately a love story, but if you're looking for a book about vampires and fangs and blood and lust and sparkles - this is not it. However, if you have an afternoon to spare, this isn't really a bad book to spend it with. Yes, it is a shameless money-pump, but I must admit that I was somewhat entertained while reading it. Grange's writing style is easier to read than Austen's classic, and it was interesting to see where she took the story.

308 pages / published in 2009
Review by Iben Jakobsen, BoB, 2011

Note: I have now read Pride and Prejudice, and my disdain for this book has grown tenfold. I'm slightly tempted to make a bonfire out of it really. It's horrific portrayal of two otherwise so deep and passionate characters as Elizabeth and Mr Darcy is an insult to Austen's memory.