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.

THE TRUE DARCY SPIRIT

A couple of days ago I wrote about Elizabeth Aston's books as sequels to the Jane Austen series. The first one I read, Mr Darcy's Daughters, did not compare to Jane Austen's work. However, though I didn't read the next in the sequence in which it had been written, it stood on its own. This book was The True Darcy Spirit. The author has captured the Austen style totally. It kept me wanting to keep reading and not put the book down until I was done though I couldn't quite manage that. However, I was through with it before the day was over while many tasks were put off until tomorrow.

For all the Austen fans who might read it, while written in our current time, the story takes place around 1830 in London. It is exciting, the characters are built up in a much more effective manner than Elizabeth Aston's first book after Austen, Mr Darcy's Daughters. (see Yiayia Online 4/26/08)

As a personal reading experience, I would rate The True Darcy Spirit right up in pleasure, anticipation, anxious moments, surprises and acceptance as quite equal. I cannot assure that Aston's books will survive two centuries as Austen's have, but for me, they are at present, sheer ecstasy reading. For those of us still romantic, it also is nice to read of a period (though purely misogynistic) had integrity and pride as important to many people of all classes.....at least that is the books' focus.