A married man in possession of a dark fortune must be in want of an eternal wife...
My hand is trembling as I write this letter. My nerves are in tatters and I am so altered that I believe you would not recognize me. The past two months have been a nightmarish whirl of strange and disturbing circumstances, and the future...
I am afraid.
If anything happens to me, remember that I love you and that my spirit will always be with you, though we may never see each other again. The world is a cold and frightening place where nothing is as it seems.
Review
It is a truth universally aknowledged that every Jane Austen fan needs a little fan-fiction every once in a while. Having previously read the
Jane Austen Heroes series by Amanda Grange and various continuations of
Pride and Prejudice, as well as numerous modern retellings of the story, I felt that it was time to read something with a paranormal twist. And what a variety I did find, from
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to
Really Angelic, where Lizzie is a guardian angel! But
Mr. Darcy, Vampyre caught my attention, partly because I already know that I enjoy Amanda Grange's writing style. Plus, Darcy is a vampire!
The novel begins the morning of the double wedding between Lizzie and Mr. Darcy, and Jane and Mr. Bingley. Similarly to every continuation I've read of
Pride and Prejudice there are all those feelings of excitement, fear of the unknown married life, and of course the wedding night. Everything runs smoothly. The couple leaves for their honeymoon trip and suddenly everything changes. Mr. Darcy becomes moody, and barely stays alone in the same room with Lizzie. As is natural, Elizabeth becomes very troubled and understands that something is wrong with her husband. The revelation that Mr. Darcy is a vampire comes much later in the novel, while it should have been one of the first things that we learn.
Throughout
Mr. Darcy, Vampyre there were constant references to characters from the original novel, although they didn't offer anything to the story. I often wondered why the fact that Darcy was a supernatural being didn't affect their meeting in
Pride and Prejudice, as well. Darcy was troubled, but we couldn't feel the total size of his suffering. What made him overcome his fears in the first place, should be enough to help him in his married life. In other words, he shouldn't have married Lizzie if he wasn't sure that he could restrain himself.
My biggest problem in the vampire romances is that most of the times the solution is pretty easy. To be honest, it's just one: the human should be turned into a vampire. It's the only way that they can co-exist and live their love through eternity. I know that being a vampire means leading a life of darkness, suffering, and death, but let's face it, is there another way? There are of course the cases where the vampire can turn bach into human, but this is the worst case scenario. And, for me, it's the laziest one as well. I'm sorry that in
Mr. Darcy, Vampyre the author chose the second path. The revelation of this option came out of the blue and without a single explanation. The "ceremony" itself was nothing, and it was just a means to give a happy ending, despite the fact that Darcy would become human and so he would have to forget his sister, Georgiana, who would still be a vampire. On the other hand, Lizzie would have to leave all of her human relatives and friends, but how cool would it be if Lizzie were to become a vampire?
All in all,
Mr. Darcy, Vampyre didn't exceed my expectations. It was a continuation to a much beloved story, with a paranormal twist, that didn't satisfy me at all. I expected to see more fangs, more blood-sucking, more action. Instead, this was a slow novel, with constant references to the original and a quite rushed ending. Maybe Mr. Darcy is better off as a true gentleman, rather than a proper vampire!
This counts as a fan-fiction novel in the 2016 Reading Challenge. 
