13/13 :: book 18 {Death Comes to Pemberley}

So, the Pride & Prejudice hysteria continues to run amok amongst my friends. Everyone is slowly making their way through the various challenge requirements – I’m down to just the book to re-read (and possibly the BBC mini series to watch, but I’m not feeling overly motivated, I must admit). So it was with much excitement I saw the announcement of a new BBC mini-series over on Tumblr – an adaptation of “Death Comes to Pemberley” by PD James {affliate link}. I am hoping that it might end up on Australian screens, so when I was at the library last week for story time, I had a gander through the fiction section, and came up trumps.

From the blurb:

“Elizabeth and Darcy have forged a peaceful, happy life for their family at Pemberley, Darcy’s impressive estate. But on the eve of a ball, chaos descends. Lydia Wickham, Elizabeth’s disgraced sister who, with her husband, has been barred from the estate, arrives in a hysterical state–shrieking that Wickham has been murdered.”

Wickham knocked off? Heck yeah I’ll read that! But it was a slight exaggeration, and unfortunately the villian we all love to hate survives. There is a murder, and Wickham is involved (are you surprised?), but the rotter won’t take a hint and is still hanging around like a bad smell at the end of it. We also got some nice Georgiana plot and resolution, which is good to see, since her part in P&P was quite small, but I’ve a new fondness for her after the LBD version of Georgiana “GiGi” Darcy was so adorable. I found it quite a good read, the prologue gave a rough overview of the P&P events for thouse who haven’t read the Austen original, before launching into the main story (though I did mention to Skip that I disagreed with some of Darcy’s motivations that were hinted at). The story itself got a bit, not convoluted, but I don’t know, some of the elements seems to come out of left field, too conveniently, and while in hindsight they were vaguely foreshadowed, it just was a bit too “look at it all fall into place miraculously!” for my liking. The characterisations seemed pretty spot on, which can be tricky – especially Lydia, who was as annoyingly entitled and as deserving as a good slap around the head as the original.

I’d rate it maybe 7 out of 10 – not bad for a read for P&P fans (or I guess PD James fans, though I haven’t read any of her other works, so I might have to try them out and see), but not one I’ll be racing to re-read in a hurry.

{current total – 18 book read, 5 new, 13 re-reads}