A Special Report from Mrs. Agent Palmer
It is Jane Austen’s 250th Birthday this year. Celebrations occurred all over England from Bath to the gardens of Austen’s own home.
Like-minded fans of Jane Austen’s works gathered from all over the world to celebrate an author whose novels still speak to readers today over two centuries after her death. Austen has cemented her legacy amongst generations of readers and I am amongst them.
Not that I necessarily need to prove my love of Jane Austen, but last year for Christmas I received as a gift a complete set of her finished works in hardcover. It’s colorful and wonderful, contained within a box that sits perfectly in the center of one of my bookshelves on the bookcase in our bedroom.
I donated the duplicates I already owned, except I did keep one hardcover of Pride & Prejudice. It was the novel that started it all, which is probably the same for many others. I do think it is probably her most popular novel. As it currently stands, my collection is still incomplete, as I need to add a collection of her short stories and if as part of that it also includes the unfinished novel, all the better, otherwise I would just get a copy of that as well, all in hardcover of course.
So to celebrate my favorite author’s birthday, I thought I would pull out an old post I wrote a while ago that never made it onto my blog before it crashed. The site went down and while we were able to pull all the data from it, I have not had the time to resurrect my blog. But that doesn’t mean this post cannot find a new home on the AgentPalmer.com blog. It is a review of an Austen adaptation which seems like an apt post for this type of celebration and for this time of year. Given it’s October, the spooky season is upon us and this is an adaptation with a Supernatural theme. This novel was written by someone who is also such an Austen fan that they took a theme and a popular Austen novel and put the two together so as to bring new life to Austen’s characters, for a new generation.
Enjoy!
It is no secret that I am a fan of Jane Austen. I have written about every book of hers that I have read so far, a task still unfinished like her final story. I have written about every TV and film adaptation that I have seen, including the modern adaptation of Clueless and the horror adaptation of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies in both its written and visual form.
So it was with great anticipation that I bought Vampire Darcy’s Desire, a Pride and Prejudice adaptation with a vampire theme, at a local bookstore’s used book sale.
I have read many books since my words have last graced the “pages” of a blog. And while some were very good and entertaining, none quite inspired me as much to pick up a writing tool once again as this book did. Not only that but this book had me longing once again to lose myself in the world of Austen’s England.
I have Persuasion by Jane Austen on my bookshelf that I will eagerly jump into eventually and potentially write about. In addition, in between reading Vampire Darcy’s Desire and writing this post, I devoured Austenland which has also been sitting on my shelf for some time. It was delightful and I would recommend it to any fellow Austen fan. But this is not about that, it’s about Vampire Darcy’s Desire.
The novel is written in Austen’s style, authentic to the language and period, at least as close as a modern American author can get. This is no surprise if you read the preface though. The author, Regina Jeffers, is an Austen fan and a member of the Jane Austen Society of America. She takes her Austen adaptations seriously and it shows in her novel being true to the form.
A thing I greatly appreciated about this novel is that it has the correct mixture of romance, vampires, horror and Austen. I’ve read quite a few of the Bridgerton novels (and seen both seasons of the Netflix adaptation) which one could easily describe as chalk full of steamy romance. Despite having desire in its title, Jeffers most definitely went for the signature Austen slow burn in this novel. No sex, just stolen kisses and passionate looks; a subtle yet seductive romance.
Our main characters, Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth, follow the well known path of rejecting their attraction for each other until they can no longer deny their feelings. It is the recipe that Austen is well known for and that Jeffers pays homage to while stirring in a bit of her own style. Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth are able to interact with each other quite easily, spending long hours of the day together. Yes, the day, because Darcy is not your average vampire. But don’t worry, there is plenty of regular vampire activity in this book to give you the horror aspect that comes along with the children of the night.
However, this is not Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight and we have established it is not as erotic as Rice, but this is also not your parent’s Dracula. Jeffers bases the life blood of her vampiric tale on an old Scottish folk ballad and a lot of research. She did borrow a bit from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, primarily taking inspiration from the character of Van Helsing. Beyond that she sought out some lesser known authors and resources on vampires some of which get referenced in the novel itself, which was a neat touch.
As for the Scottish ballad, it is “Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender.” A tragic tale with a story behind it that dates back to the time of Charles II, which fits well into the story Jeffers wanted to tell. It was her source of the curse plaguing Darcy and his family. It’s clear just how much research Jeffers did to build her own mythos for the vampires in her novel. It also inspired me to try and seek out some of her references.
Jeffers is also an award winning English teacher, earning accolades for her writing as well. She has two additional Austen-style novels with the same publisher as Vampire Darcy’s Desire. Another adaptation of Pride and Prejudice but from the viewpoint of Fitzwilliam Darcy, as well as a Pride and Prejudice sequel dealing with what life was like after marriage for Pride & Prejudice’s famous couple. I have both sitting in my Amazon shopping cart, waiting until I have a bit more room on my bookshelf and time to read
I really liked this novel from the start, but the affection very quickly turned to love. I cannot fix on the hour, but I can tell you the exact page. Halfway through the book, appropriately, on page 235, I came across the near exact line from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that any fan would recognize, “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. I was in the middle before I knew I had begun.” It’s only missing five words to differ from the original. How could I not love this book entirely at that point? What a nod to Austen! And there was still a very satisfying second half of a novel that I devoured, plus an epilogue!
So that’s it, that is all you’ll get from me. I implore you to seek out this novel. The very same paperback publication is available right now on Amazon for less than $10 but I’m sure it can also be found in bookstores and libraries.
I leave you with this fun fact, Vampire Darcy’s Desire was published the same year as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, in 2009. It was a good year for the macabre meets Austen!
Mrs. Agent Palmer formerly Agent Carter is a writer, podcaster, and geek. From Jane Austen to Agatha Christie, Doctor Who, Marvel, DC, and more, she geeks on books, nerds on movies, enjoys music, and fedoras.