FOR JANE AUSTEN LOVERS

My blog writing didn't happen last night because I was rapt and wrapped last night in a fourth Elizabeth Aston book in the manner of Jane Austen. This one was The Darcy Connection. Disappointed that I had finished the Aston books as well as Austen, I found in Amazon that there is another Aston book in her series The Exploits and Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy: a Novel. While browsing there, I see that there is a whole cottage industry of writers capitalizing from Jane Austen. I ordered a few more to check them out, hoping (and reasonably sure) it will not dampen feelings about the original Austen.


Aston writes well. After the first that I read by her on the Darcy clan, she did a much better job at building her characters. However, one thing I noted (though she relies heavily on the format that Austen used) is that she has peppered her books with villains while Austen only used mean spirited characters. While there is one who might be called a villain, he was simply selfish and not really as determined to do the kind of evil Aston writes about in some of her characters. There are intrigues, misunderstandings, but less of the detail with which Austen described went through the heads of her characters. Nevertheless, Aston's books still qualify beautifully in the 'feel-good' category of books for readers who like to leave the last page with a nice warm feeling that the world is not such a bad place, after all.