Review by Jenny Ellis

While Darcy’s name appears in the title of this Austen inspired modern day setting book, don’t assume it’s a take on Pride and Prejudice. It’s a nice blend of multiple Austen novels. Kay Ashton is working on illustrating all of Austen’s novels. Shortly after buying a bed & breakfast in Lyme so she can work on finishing her book The Illustrated Mr. Darcy a film crew working on an adaptation of Persuasion comes to town and the cast takes over her B&B. All the girls are crushing on the actor playing Wentworth, Oli Wade Owen. But sadly I did not find him likeable when Wentworth is my favorite Austen hero. I kept thinking if this were a real movie I’m not sure I could watch it.

Kay has some Emma-like traits and tries setting Gemma, who is playing Anne, up with the screenwriter and producer Adam while as readers we know Adam likes Kay. A couple times I just wanted to reach into the book and shake Kay.

It was kind of fun realizing certain parts of the storyline were from different Austen novels which I think makes this a highly discussable novel because some people may have caught things that you didn’t and vice versa. Makes you want to re-read it with a notebook handy (because as a librarian I would never mark in my book[Witness! –Ed.]) to write down all the homages to Austen’s novels.

Since this was a modern take on Jane Austen I wasn’t sure if everyone would end up with who I wanted them to… of course I can’t answer that without having a *spoiler alert* so I won’t. This book is the second in the Austen Addicts series. You don’t have to read book 1 for this book to make sense. I didn’t. But now I want to.