A Weekend With Mr. Darcy by Victoria Connelly is a summer read for Austenites and those who want to have fun. Set in modern day England, Dr. Katherine Roberts works too hard as a professor at St. Bridget’s College in Oxford and sees her role as lecturer at the Jane Austen Conference as a way for her to get away and relax. She befriends regency romance author Lorna Warwick through letters and hopes that the conference will put a face to the name she’s begun to call friend. Meanwhile, Robyn is stuck in a relationship with Jace (Jason Collins) and is too worried about his feelings to express her own or to end their relationship. She decides that she’s not going to think about her life while at the Austen conference, but just enjoy herself before dealing with her fading relationship with her childhood friend.
“She thought of the secret bookshelves in her study at home and ho they groaned deliciously under the weight of Miss Warwick’s work. How her colleagues would frown and fret at such horrors as popular fiction! How quickly would she be marched from her Oxford office and escorted from St. Bridget’s College if they knew of her wicked passion?” (page 2 of ARC)
Women and their passion for Jane Austen’s characters seems never-ending, but does this passion for Austen sometimes prevent these women from living their own lives? And does it ensure that the men in their lives will never measure up to Mr. Darcy or Captain Wentworth? Connelly has created a cast of characters that have flaws and find themselves in situations they never expected. Dr. Roberts is a strong woman with a passion for sexy Regency romances, but her own love life is a disaster until she finds herself in situation much like Captain Wentworth, while Robyn is trapped by obligation in a life much like Edward Ferrars. It is an interesting correlation between Austen’s characters and Connelly’s female leads, as it demonstrates a new perspective on how these situations would be handled.
Connelly also creates a cast of characters that are fun and outrageous from Dame Pamela to Higgins the butler. And of course, what Austen spinoff doesn’t have its own Lady Catherine de Bourgh — in this case, it’s Mrs. Soames. A Weekend With Mr. Darcy by Victoria Connelly is a great romp in the English countryside with some gal pals and hot men that will make you giggle, squirm, and sit on the edge of your seat. A quick summer read that will have readers wondering if an Austen-filled weekend should be their next vacation.
Victoria Connelly grew up in Norfolk before attending Worcester University where she studied English Literature. After graduating, she worked her way through a number of jobs before becoming a teacher in North Yorkshire. In 2000, she got married in a medieval castle in the Yorkshire Dales and moved to London. She is currently working on a trilogy about Jane Austen addicts. The first, A Weekend with Mr Darcy, was published in the UK by Avon, HarperCollins, and will be published in the US by Sourcebooks in July 2011. The second in the trilogy, The Perfect Hero, was published in the UK in April 2011. She lives in London with her artist husband, a springer spaniel and four ex-battery hens.
This is my 34th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.
I really enjoyed this book. Dame Pamela and Higgins were hilarious, and Jace Collins was definitely as ridiculous as Mr. Collins in P&P. Glad you liked it, too.
Mr. Collins…is just a riot in any form!
This does sound like fun! I love the protagonist’s name, even though she spelled her first name wrong. 😉
LOL
Such a lot of Mr.Darcy around and I do hope I get to it eventually. This sounds so nice.
There is a ton of Mr. Darcy going on these days!