Sunday, January 29, 2012

Compulsively Mr. Darcy by Nina Benneton





For anyone obsessed with Pride & Prejudice, it's Darcy and Elizabeth like you've never see them before!
This modern take introduces us to the wealthy philanthropist Fitzwilliam Darcy, a handsome and brooding bachelor who yearns for love but doubts any woman could handle his obsessive tendencies. Meanwhile, Dr. Elizabeth Bennet has her own intimacy issues that ensure her terrible luck with men.
When the two meet up in the emergency room after Darcy's best friend, Charles Bingley, gets into an accident, Elizabeth thinks the two men are a couple. As Darcy and Elizabeth unravel their misconceptions about each other, they have to decide just how far they're willing to go to accept each other's quirky ways... (synopsis from B&N.com)
Sourcebooks, Trade Paperback, 352 pages

When I read the summary for this book, I was a little leery of reading it.  I was worried the Darcy character would be ruled by his OCD and be less romantic.  Boy was I wrong! In this wonderful adaptation by Nina Benneton, Darcy’s OCD is sensitively handled; Darcy is a man with OCD but he is not defined by it.
Darcy and Bingley have come to Vietnam to help his sister and brother in law, the Hurst’s, finalize an adoption at an orphanage managed by Jane Bennett.  Bingley injures his leg horsing around and ends up at the hospital. Darcy goes with him but doesn’t go inside (one of his quirks) until it seems to him that too much time has gone by and he goes in to give someone what-for.  He ends up blundering into a surgery setup, gets into a tussle with the surgeon, sees Bingley’s bloody leg and takes a facer onto the floor.  Guess who the surgeon is?
After this inauspicious beginning, Darcy and Elizabeth develop a friendship that quickly goes deeper. Misunderstandings abound, nasty relatives and enemies do their best to break up the couple, and things go very badly. Just as in the book from which this novel is adapted, people make assumptions about other people and misread situations which lead to the relationship troubles.
I loved that way Ms. Benneton worked in the characters from the original book and from other Jane Austen books as well.  Some of the characters follow a similar path as the original version, but others go a different direction and it all works. Elizabeth and Darcy have a strong relationship that overcomes their own mistrust and outside influences. The bad people get punished and when you read the last page you think to yourself…. That was really an enjoyable read!  I hope that we will see more from Ms. Benneton

1 comment:

  1. I just received this book as a gift from a friend. I am really eager to read it, esp. after reading your review.

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