Linda Beutler’s (author of A Will of Iron – my review here, The Red Chrysanthemum – my review here and Longbourn to London) new novel, called My Mr Darcy and Your Mr Bingley covers one year and it starts with Bingley’s thoughts in London a few weeks after he left the Netherfield.
Ms Beutler is great at showing the ups and downs of relationships in this story. How Darcy’s and Bigley’s, Jane’s and Lizzy’s, Jane and Bingley’s, Lizzy’s and Lydia’s, Lizzy’s and Darcy’s, Darcy’s and the Gardiner’s friendships and relationships fall apart, then develop are refined.
To be honest, I have always wondered if someone will say it out loud, what is definitely not as romantic as we like to think, but very clear for me, that Darcy took notice of Elizabeth because she was pretty and he was physically attracted to her. Well… in the beginning of the story the narrator says that much, however it is smoothened in the end of the book when Darcy says he loved her mind first. Towards the end there’s a proposal and I have never read a proposal which was more unique than Darcy and Lizzy’s proposal here!
Ms Beutler knows how to describe reactions. You will like Bingley’s reaction, but then comes Jane… Now, her reaction is eye opening, unexpected more than one time during the storyline. Without saying too much, I love that it is pictured that Jane is after all from the same family as Elizabeth, and they are very much alike, especially that they grew up together and are very close. The beautiful, angelic, sweet Jane has wit and dignity. She is heartbroken after all and full of surprises! I love when she has depth and not as shallow as we might think about her in Pride and Prejudice.
Wickham is as bad as always, but his story is not a cliché. He causes problems but not we used to read which makes the book more colourful, and as you might know, I hate reading about him, but when the outcome is not the usual, I like it.
Darcy is brilliant, quite a comical figure in some scenes. The author has managed to paint him a bigger fool (in a funny way) than I thought it was possible. The Hunsford parsonage scene is amazingly ridiculous and what makes it more ridiculous is that I can absolutely imagine he would be like that, which means Ms Beutler has captured him very well despite the fact that she follows a very different plot. She has bright ideas how to spice up a character. She manages to do it with keeping the hero or heroine’s essential characteristic but sprinkles it with her own way of thinking about the character.
There are so many scenes I love in this book. One is the proposal but I think my favourite part is Darcy’s and Mrs Gardiner’s dialogue. A masterpiece, I have to say.
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My Mr Darcy and Your Mr Bingley, Linda Beutler – Amazon US
My Mr Darcy and Your Mr Bingley, Linda Beutler – Amazon UK
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With the blog tour there is a giveaway!
GIVEAWAY – CLICK HERE
Readers may enter the drawing by tweeting once a day and daily commenting on a blog post that has a giveaway attached for the tour. (1 comment/blog post) Entrants should provide the name of the blog where they commented (which will be verified). You may enter once by following the author on twitter and once by following the author on Facebook.
Remember, tweet daily and comment once per post with a giveaway to earn extra entries.
Each winner will be randomly selected by Rafflecopter.
**NOTE: Ebook copies are available for 8 winners and the giveaway is international! 8 eBooks will be given away to 8 different winners.**
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Linda Beutler’s professional life is spent in a garden, an organic garden housing America’s foremost public collection of clematis vines and a host of fabulous companion plants. Her home life reveals a more personal garden, still full of clematis, but also antique roses and vintage perennials planted around and over a 1907 cottage. But one can never have enough of gardening, so in 2011 she began cultivating a weedy patch of Jane Austen Fan Fiction ideas. The first of these to ripen was The Red Chrysanthemum (Meryton Press, 2013), which won a silver IPPY for romance writing in 2014. You might put this down as beginner’s luck—Linda certainly does. The next harvest brought Longbourn to London (Meryton Press, 2014), known widely as “the [too] sexy one”. In 2015 Meryton Press published the bestseller A Will of Iron, a macabre rom-com based on the surprising journals of Anne de Bourgh.
Now, after a year-long break in JAFF writing to produce Plant Lovers Guide to Clematis (Timber Press, 2016)—the third in a bouquet of books on gardening—we have My Mr. Darcy and Your Mr. Bingley bursting into bloom.
Contact Info:
Twitter: @oregonclematis
Facebook: Linda Beutler Author
Wandering Pemberley’s Gardens
Obsessed with Mr Darcy 
I read and posted a review on this book…loved it.
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Excellent review, Mira! I’m so glad that you loved the book. The statement at the end about ‘masterpiece’ says a lot. I, too, loved the dialogue between Darcy and Mrs. Gardiner. It was neat and rather enlightening too!
Thank you, Mira, for sharing your thoughts and for taking part in the blog tour.
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Mira, thank you so very much for your kind and observant review. You noticed some details others have not. As you say, Wickham causes problems in the story, but only by being himself, and he is not a major feature. My focus stayed with my four major characters and how they learn their lessons. Oh, and Mr. Bennet, too. Indolent he may be, but when he is truly needed, he does what needs to be done! Reviewers like you (and Sheila, thank you, too!), make it all worthwhile!
Best regards, Linda B
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Thanks for a very interesting and excellent review Mira. I love your paragraph about how practically all of the relationships in the book break down at some point and are eventually rebuilt during the course of the rest of the story. Makes me want to read it even more.
Your comment about Darcy’s attraction to Elizabeth also rings true. Jane Austen herself says as much in canon: “But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness.”
In other words, the physical attraction was there from the start, although he was trying to deny it even to himself, but it might have remained as nothing more if he hadn’t eventually fallen in love with her for her personality, character and intelligence.
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Exactly! Darcy had to get out of his own way. I simply state it a tad more forcefully than our dear Miss Austen. Once Elizabeth stated emphatically she was beyond him, Darcy could see his errors of perception. But once she accepts him, all of the passion returns, deepened by the respect he has learned along the way. Best of luck in the giveaway! Thanks, Anji!
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Good to read that Wickham is causing some trouble. Glad to know that it has been acknowledged that Darcy lusted after Elizabeth first
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In canon P&P we know Darcy met Elizabeth in the groves of Rosings Park three mornings in a row. Here, those three meetings are played out in a chapter of their own. We very clearly see Darcy’s vivid fantasy life, which blinds him to Elizabeth’s behavior. He reads volumes more into her every word and action than is actually there. He is willfully, blindly foolish, as Mira says in her review. All I’ve done here is spell out out far more than Jane Austen did. Thanks, Vesper!
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Great review. You mentioned that it was a masterpiece, just went to the top of my wishlist. Can’t wait to read!
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Mira is far too kind. But none the less I hope you will enjoy what unfolds when Bingley exerts a little independence.
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What a wonderful review for a wonderful book! IMHO, Linda’s sly wit is quite reminiscent of our favorite author. I was also delighted with the interaction between Darcy and Mrs. Gardiner, especially when they launched into Derbyshire-speak!
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Thanks, Gail! This is the second novel where we get a little of the Derby dialect. It is true, I love doing the research for these stories.
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That’ll be especially interesting for me. I was born and grew up in Leicestershire, just south of Derbyshire and for many years now, have lived and worked in Yorkshire, north of Derbyshire. I wonder what’ll seem familiar and what’ll be different from the dialects I know.
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I have read all Linda’s books and couldn’t resist this one so I have just finished reading it. I loved it and gave it 5* when I posted my review on Amazon. I love the humour in her stories, especially Darcy and his mis reading of situations and people. Luckily he did manage to learn from his mistakes and improve Elizabeth’s opinion of him. I also enjoyed Mr Bennet’s lesson to Jane, who really surprised me in this story. Obviously I haven’t entered the giveaway but just wanted to express my appreciation of this lovely book.
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Thank you, Glynis! Given how much Mr. Bennet is disliked by other JAFF authors, something about the way I read P&P always makes me want to defend him when I go to write. Even in P&P he may grouse, but he does to the right thing (calling on Mr. Bingley, taking a pragmatic view of Wickham, setting out for London in search of Lydia). But I had a great relationship with my Mr. Bennet-like father, and I miss Dad everyday. No one can tell a joke the way Dad could. Hence, Mr. Bennet is the one to both see Jane’s miscalculation of tactics, and set her straight.
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What a lovely review, Mira! You bring up many great points about this story.
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Thanks, Claudine! We look forward to seeing you on the blog tour in a few days!
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Great review, Mira. And I agree with everything you said, great observations. 🙂
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Thanks Kate, for your praise of our day four hostess! Best of luck with the giveaway!
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I tend to enjoy reading situations where Darcy is a dolt. 😉 Sometimes, *he* needs a little comeuppance too!
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Ginna, here you will find Darcy very much in his “fool in love” mode! He is so lost in his own musings he doesn’t see Elizabeth’s responses to his muted overtures in anything like a realistic manner. But we all know she sets him straight!
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Actually I liked very much Elizabeth and Lydia’s relationship! I always thought that she would be a better person with more love and influence from her two eldest sisters!
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