The Bar Sinister, Pride and Prejudice Continues [Paperback]

Linda Berdoll (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1999

This book is a furthering of the story of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice through the Napoleonic Wars. It is written in Jane Austen style, historically accurate, but sexy and somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This respectful continuation of the story of Mr. and Mrs. Darcy employs creditably Austen-esque prose, laced with a wonderfully dry wit, to follow all the original characters, as well as some new ones, to the marriage bed, through childbirth, scandal, tradedy and war. Indeed, herewith you will find Mr. and Mrs. Darcy as you no doubt have already imagined them." -- Kathryn Baker, writer, "Melrose Place", "Murphy Brown"

DREAMING OF DARCY If the admirers of Regency tales and their screen adaptations (including the world-famous 1995 television version of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth as the magnificent Mr. Darcy) have ever wondered what sort of book Jane Austen might have written using the modern insight of a 20th century popular novelist, one possible and engaging answer can be found in this surprisingly sizeable volume full of vivid descriptions and Austen-like sardonic comment presented in an elegant mock-archaic language. The story - in which a web of fascinating intrigue and adventure is gradually unveiled against the backdrop of Napoleonic wars, just as Mr. and Mrs. Darcy's passionate honeymoon draws to a close - has already been acclaimed as one of the best P&P sequels published to date. -- Maria Mirevich

Product Details

• Paperback: 467 pages
• Publisher: Well, There It is Publishers (October 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967481708
• ISBN-13: 978-0967481708
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (176 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #998,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

At long last Linda Berdoll's third Pride & Prejudice sequel, The Ruling Passion, has been released. A follow up to her smash-hit, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife and its continuation, Darcy & Elizabeth (over 300,000 copies in print and still counting), The Ruling Passion is now available on Linda's website www.lindaberdoll.us.

In a change of pace to her Jane Austen sequels, she released Fandango in 2010. This tale takes place in 19th C. San Francisco. In this entirely original work, our heroine, young Annabella Chase comes to learn that it's one thing to go asking for trouble, quite another to offer it a chair.

While researching her Pride & Prejudice sequels, she collected a vast store of euphemistic grandiloquence and wove it into Very Nice Ways to Say Very Bad Things.

E-books for The Ruling Passion and Fandango will be available soon.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

302 of 334 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Begrimed besoiled bedewed and bewildered, April 27, 2000

By 

Valerie Archambeau (Highland Park, Illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bar Sinister, Pride and Prejudice Continues (Paperback)

This book should be taken out an SHOT.
It is so BAD it is unintentionally funny. Very funny. My favorite sentences so far:
"Propitious fortune allowed her to descry whom the crepuscular light yielded."
"Lack of conversation of which he did nothing to mitigate."
"Whilst still partaking their meal, Darcy apologised upon its austere winter dressing of his county unnecessarily."
Believe me, folks, the whole thing reads like this. I am NOT making this up.
I intend to write an update when I finish the book (I am researching sequels to Austen), but at page 40 I'm drowning in in a sea of "betwixt" and "howbeit."
Many of the sentences are downright be-cramped with broken sentence structure and overwrought language. All things are besoiled, bedewed, begrimed, bechanced. Nothing is ever dewed or grimed or soiled. No one ever sits between two people, it is "indubitably" betwixt. The characters do not exit, only egress.
Even if you can ignore the horrible writing, you will be affronted by the sub-par romantic/erotic plotting and descriptions (womanly portal and nether garments, indeed!). If it's a good sequel you're looking for, I'd advise "Letters from Pemberly" by Jane Dawkins. If you're looking for a good romance novel, check out "Ransom" by Julie Garwood.
Perhaps this author never actually read Austen. Perchance she only beviewed it upon the electronic movie-viewing apparatus. Howbeit, perchance some be-revising will aid this ailing monstrosity. After all, Austen fully revised her first draft, one can only hope Linda Berdoll will do the same.
I will continue to read in hopes that the story will overcome the overwritten and overwrought language of the author, though it is doubtful I can take much more of this.

57 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I liked it!, July 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Bar Sinister, Pride and Prejudice Continues (Paperback)

First for the negative. I could not, for the life of me, understand, what possessed the author to misspell Elizabeth's name, as well as the word "Pemberley." I still don't get it--it must have been fairly easy to verify and edit. In general, the spelling was erratic, and the vocabulary sometimes bizarre (all of a sudden, I felt that I knew very little English, as every third word seemed arcane). Also, if you are a purist, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK--the sex parts are numerous and sometimes graphic. Jane Austen would not have written it like this...

That said, the author nowhere claims to be JA. And for a 20th C. sequel, the book is GOOD. The plot is interesting, with twists and turns, and the language, though somewhat dumbfounding, is rich and very much in the spirit of JA (though JA's langauge IS easier to understand :)). And then there's the absolutely breathtaking love story--Darcy and Lizzy's relationship is just great as the author describes it. It's very sexual, true, but also, loving and respectful. They are quite a little partnership in this book, and wheather all kinds of awful troubles with considerable grace. Their characters, I thought, were very true to the way JA described them--Lizzy is spunky and brave, and Darcy--a "man of considerable personal courage," as the author describes him at some point.

Other characters are very much in character as well: Fitzwilliam is loyal and noble, Wickham is low and predatory, Lydia is bordering on idiocy (as is the mother, of course), Aunt Catherine is ... well, Aunt Catherine. Georgiana was a bit of a surprise, for she gives Darcy quite a bit of trouble.

In general, I would not recommend this book to an Austen purist, but I did recommend it to a bunch of my Darcy-obsessed girlfriends... and chances are, if the author writes something else, I'll read that as well.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good story, but needs an editor, May 10, 2000

By 

Riding the Ragged Edge (Atlanta,GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bar Sinister, Pride and Prejudice Continues (Paperback)

I really enjoyed the story Ms. Berdoll tells. I love all of the scenes between Elizabeth and Darcy, and how she fleshed out some of the minor characters in P&P (makes me wonder if a TV script was in the back of her mind...). But you have to be VERY forgiving as you read. I have never read a book with so many typos! I am not a literary critic, but I did feel some of the story itself could have used an editor's guiding hand and the five-dollar words used throughout were a bit much. If you are a Jane Austen purist, you may have a stroke reading this book, but if the A&E mini-series left you "Darcy-manic" this is a fun, racy sequel.