Title: The Man who Loved Pride and Prejudice
Series: Woods Hole Quartet bk 1
Author: Abigail Reynolds
Genre: Contemporary
A modern love story with a Jane Austen twist…
Marine biologist Cassie Boulton has no patience when a modern-day Mr. Darcy appears in her lab on Cape Cod. Proud, aloof Calder Westing III is the scion of a famous political family, while Cassie’s success is hard-won in spite of a shameful family history.
When their budding romance is brutally thwarted, both by his family and by hers, Calder tries to set things right by rewriting the two of them in the roles of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet from Pride & Prejudice…but will Cassie be willing to supply the happy ending?
I normally don’t like Austen fiction, I think that the stories that Jane Austen wrote where perfect they way that they are. So when I saw the name of this book I went okay I will read the blurb and thought well neither one of their names is Elizabeth or Darcy so I will give it a shot.
It took me a while to get to this book, but I eventually started reading it. And I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. While there are elements of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s personalities in Cassie and Calder they are nothing like Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.
I really liked Cassie, she comes from a very poor family from the South Side of Chicago, and is the only one in her family to have graduated high school let alone gone to college. One thing she doesn’t do is let anyone in, and she doesn’t look below the surface of Calder to see what is really going on with him.
Calder is an introvert big time. He has a few close friends and that is it. He absolutely hates the lifestyle of his parents, and thinks Cassie is a breath of fresh air. He has no clue however why after an amazing night together that she would blow him off.
They both return to their lives, with Cassie having no intention of ever seeing him again. That is until they run into each other at a Christmas party and once again they have mixed signals. When Cassie is given his latest book however she realizes that every thing she’d believed about him and his feelings towards her was false.
You would think that at this point their road to happily ever after would be set in stone, but it isn’t. And that is where it lost me.
I enjoyed the book a lot. However there was a lot of things that really bugged me about the book that and I think took a lot of the enjoyment of the book away from me.
1- This isn’t a first person book, however I felt like the book was almost completely one-sided. There is a section of the book that comes from his perspective completely, and I really liked that, but for the most part it was all Cassie, and I would have liked to get to know more about Calder.
2- It took forever to get to the point where they were together, and it was very wordy. Lots of descriptions. I’ve read other books where it takes the characters a couple of years together however this one felt like it wasn’t ever going to happen.
3- The secondary storylines needed more information, more time, more details. Especially the one with Scott and Erin, he is Calder’s best friend and she is Cassie’s best friend and it is because of them that met.
All that being said I will be reading the next book in the series as I want to know what is going to happen with Calder’s family.
Grade B-/C+
Other books in the series
I love reading Pride & Prejudice Fiction – but usually books on Mr. Darcy and Lizzie’s life after they got married. I haven’t read one set in modern times yet. Good review.
I also don’t read P&P fiction. And this one certainly does not tempt me to start. Thanks for the review.
I love Austen’s books and the thought of a hero who is like Darcy makes me sigh. Sounds like he would be a very sensitive man very understanding of a woman and her feelings. Who wouldn’t want someone like that in her life? I know I would! Thank you for the great review!