DARCY’S PASSIONS
When rich, pedigreed Fitzwilliam Darcy comes to Hertfordshire as a service to his best friend Charles Bingley, the handsome snob assumes the locals all possess “vulgar” country manners. So, when the opportunity arises, he refuses to dance with local maiden Elizabeth Bennet at the Meryton Assembly. From that moment, however, the woman’s charms possess his every waking and sleeping minute.
Obsessed with Elizabeth Bennet, Darcy places himself in a position to learn more about her – though realizing his social status will not allow him to marry her. He manipulates Bingley and others in order to spend time with her. He tells himself Elizabeth is simply a “diversion” from the lack of society he finds in Hertfordshire. However, if she is only a diversion, then why does he dream of her as mistress of his estate? Why does he seek her out as a friend for his shy, withdrawn sister? Why does he allow her to speak to him with a saucy attitude? Why can he not even breathe when she is in the room? Why does a raise of her eyebrow or an enigmatic smile or the smell of the lavender she wears create havoc with his emotions? His duty to his family and his estate demand he choose a woman of refined tastes. Yet, what his mind tells him he wants and what Darcy’s heart knows he needs are two different things.
Suddenly, Darcy is in turmoil. He loves a woman he initially denies as being worthy, but it is he who is found wanting when Elizabeth refuses his proposal of marriage because he does not conform to her standards of a “gentleman.” Devastated, he must transform himself into the man she can learn to love and respect. With the help of his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and his sister Georgiana, Darcy learns that before he can find real love with Elizabeth, he must first love himself, and an emptiness he has never been able to acknowledge must be filled. Along the way, Fitzwilliam Darcy discovers himself – the master of Pemberley, but also a man who graciously accepts the love and respect of others.
In Darcy’s Passions, author Regina Jeffers dips her eloquent pen on an immortal romantic tale and whips up a most intriguing concoction: a masterful, deliciously readable retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice through the eyes of Mr. Darcy.
Masterfully providing a unique, worthy voice to the humor, clever dialogue, and piercing social commentary of Austen’s most famous work, Jeffers succeeds beautifully in offering an alternate angle of a classic love story; one that has engaged in a blissful romance with its audience for nearly two-hundred years — and figures to do so for the rest of time.