Mrs. Darcy's Dilemma

From time to time you get sequels on the market to old books, sequels written by new authors. I have often been tempted and bought sequels, only to be deeply disappointed. Somehow the new writer fail to find the true sense of the book, and I end up frustrated, feeling that the sequel is ruining my original joy of the book.

I few weeks ago I was tempted again though, to buy another sequel, by yet another "new" writer. This time the original book was Pride and Prejudice and the sequel, Mrs. Darcy's Dilemma, is written by Diana Birchall. Diana is a member of my Armchairtravelling group on yahoo, and through the years I have learned to know her as a reflective woman and writer with some very interesting views, and also a huge lover of Jane Austen. So when she told us about her new book over at the yahoo group I knew I wanted to give this book a try.

I finished Mrs. Darcy's Dilemma last night, with a broad smile on my face and with a deep sight of delight. Here, finally, I found a classic sequel which fully managed to follow in the original writers style. Written with a charming, beautiful flow of words. Written in an ordfashioned style, with turns and bends in the story which at times makes me terrible angry, but always when I give it a second thought I knew that our dear old Jane herself could have written this book.

We meet Mr. and Mrs. Darcy 15 years after, and a main topic of the book is their three children. All the old characters are still with us, and some new have come as well. And dear Mrs. Darcy is the same, charming, lovable woman and wife as she was 25 years ago.