I am a big fan of Beauty and the Beast so when I saw this cross over on Amazon I didn’t think twice about buying it.
Darcy and the Beast is a mash up of Pride & Prejudice and Beauty and the Beast where Mr. Darcy’s family faces a course that stipulates that the male heirs need to marry for love or some disaster will occur. Darcy’s father decides to ignore that, and marries without love, which triggers a downfall of Pemberley’s income. To solve that, he forces Mr. Darcy to marry an heiress, and the curse carries on. Darcy will be particularly affected by it as during a fire he is severely injured and gets permanent scars.
Because of those events he becomes a bitter person who is forced to wear a mask to hide his face. This fact, along with the rumors that accompany him, will make the people of Meryton fear and despise him, so when he buys Mrs. Bennet’s debts and uses that as leverage to make Elizabeth marry him, she is everything but happy and is able to negotiate with him, accepting to live at Pemberley, but not to marry Mr. Darcy.
I found the initial chapters of the book very humorous as we see characters proclaiming sentences we never thought they would pronounce. Then it takes a more serious tone as we see Elizabeth living with Darcy at Pemberley and their relationship enfolding. There are also some romantic scenes in the book and I found the daily marriage proposals very endearing 🙂
I enjoyed this book immensely, but some people may not like to read how Darcy got Elizabeth to live with him at Pemberley and that his personality is more similar to the Beast than to Darcy’s. I truly liked Darcy’s character; to me he was a sexy man whom I wanted to take care of. But I believe readers need to accept that he will be very similar to the Beast.
There was, however, one character I didn’t enjoy: Georgiana. Sometimes her goodness and ingenuity are tiresome and I’m not particularly fond of those characteristics when exaggerated, but I didn’t like seeing her portrayed as a little brat in this book.
Also, I was expecting Elizabeth to actually fall in love with Darcy and it felt she only fell in love with Mr. Dream and merely tolerated Mr. Darcy. Plus the ending of the book felt too rushed without any explanation as to how Darcy recovered etc. I think that this book has a lot of potential and it would have been great if the author had developed it a little more, it is however an enjoyable read and I still had many pleasant moments while reading it.
You can find Darcy the Beast at:
From Pemberley to Milton 
Thanks Rita for your great interview. I find it a common problem with such short books: some events and the ending are rushed, and characters are not fully developed. But I’ll put it on my TBR list, it looks like a nice read. 🙂
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It was a good read Kate, and I really liked the Beauty and the Beast scenario 🙂
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Rita excellent review. You made several excellent points I had not considered… great thinking process. I loved this book and it was 5-stars for me. When reading a mash up I try to decide who’s rules to follow. In this case I read it as B&B placed in the P&P universe, with the castle being Pemberley, of course.
Darcy with his brooding persona was a perfect choice for Beast. In many JAFF he is practically a beast anyway with his manners, conceit and disdain. Have I said yet that I loved the cover?
So I see him first as the Beast overlaying canon Darcy. So he may act or react differently than canon because he follows the B&B rules first and P&P rules second. There are slight variations between the two.
Anyway, great review and thanks for sharing the post. Have a blessed day. JWG
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Thank you Jeanne :)) Your comment is very encouraging!
I did love Darcy’s character, and I think I liked him so much because to me he was indeed the Beast. Like you, I think he has the perfect personality to be adapted to the Beast. But I do think readers need to accept that or they won’t like it. Thabks for stopping by and sharing your opinion with us 😉
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I bought this book a while back, and I can’t wait to get a chance to read it. Great review!
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Thank Anna, I’m looking forward to see what you think of it 🙂
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I hadn’t seen this one yet. It looks fun! Thanks for the promo and interview.
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It is very different and that is good thing, I always like mash ups 🙂
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Hi Rita,
Lizzy fell in love with Mr Dream and not Darcy???? Yikes!! Does she not realise that she resides with Darcy???
Georgiana was unpleasant,a little brattish and didn’t live up to your expectations?
What a pity! I’m delighted that it still merited 4* !!!
Loved reading your thoughts,as usual!! 😉
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Hi Mary, it’s not as bad as it seems, I didn’t say more about Mr. Dream because it would spoil the story, but you will not feel so strongly against this when you read it. In any case, I would have enjoyed a stronger feeling to be growing in Lizzy towards Darcy. I think the book would gain if further developed by the author, I’m not sure if she had beta’s reading it, but that would have been something I would point out for example. Georgiana was indeed a character I didn’t enjoy, but the book is good overall and I enjoyed the story 🙂
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Thankyou for such a good review Rita. I hadn’t seen this book but will add it to my wish list. I mean who doesn’t love a sexy Darcy? I certainly wouldn’t object to him proposing every day 😍
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I really liked this Darcy Glynis, even if he is more like the Beast than Darcy, but the again, I think they have similar characteristics 🙂
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The fairy tale mash-up sounds like a good one, but bummer it was a rushed one at the end. Bratty Georgie doesn’t sound fun, but neat that there is some humor in the story. Thanks for the review thoughts, Rita!
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I loved the mash up Sophia, for me the story was perfect! I was only sorry the book was not a little more than developed in some points because that could have made it perfect.
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I love Beauty & the Beast stories. I have watched the two TV series and have several versions on DVD: one in French with subtitles. Just this week I watched another French version on Netflix (I think) and found it to be the best production I have seen yet. I did read and review this book. There is a book out there which touches on looks vs. character called Making Faces by Amy Harmon. I loved it as it so touched on judging people on their souls and behaviors rather than looks. We do make a lot about looks in the P&P canon and variations. One thing I have loved about the book, Jane Eyre, is that both she and Rochester were not considered handsome/beautiful people. Thanks for sharing.
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That was also one of the reasons I loved Jane Eyre 🙂
I think that Beauty and the Beast is perfect for a mash-up with pride and prejudice, because looks lead people to be prejudiced in the story and the beast has a lot in common with Darcy 🙂
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