Dancing With Mr Darcy: Stories inspired by Jane Austen and Chawton House
By Sarah Waters
3.5/5
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About this ebook
Sarah Waters
Sarah Waters has a Ph.D. in English literature and has been an associate lecturer withthe Open University. She has won a Betty Trask Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award, the South Bank Show Award for Literature, and her books have been short-listed for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and the Man Booker and Orange prizes. In 2003, she was named Author of the Year three times andwas chosen as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.
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Reviews for Dancing With Mr Darcy
38 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I reviewed this book for Romance Reader At Heart website: RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS: First and foremost, you have to be a big Jane Austen fan to want to read a book like DANCING WITH MR. DARCY. This is a compilation of some twenty short stories that were submitted to the Chawton House Library for a literary contest. As the title suggests, all of the short stories were to be inspired by Jane Austen. Not knowing what to expect from this read, I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised by the talent of most of the stories that I've read. Since they are short stories, I finished reading this book in one evening. Every story maintained a fast pace and most of them were full of quick-witted dialogue. I enjoyed most of them and found them interesting, imaginative, and unique. The winner of the competition, Jane Austen Over the Styx, opened this book, and out of all the stories in here, I just didn't connect well with it. In that story, we have a dead Jane Austen, accused by some of the characters she wrote about of portraying them as manipulative shrews. This is the only story that I found a bit on the slow side and not as interesting as the rest of them. Personally, I loved One Character in Search of Her Love Story Role by Felicity Cowie. This was a contemporary story in which our heroine is given an assignment to `shadow' Jane Bennet and Jane Eyre. The dialogue was very good and the characters three-dimensional, but the footnotes made by our heroine were laughing-out-loud funny! Please, if you get to read this book, make sure to check out biographies of these very talented people. They come from England, Scotland, North and South Wales, Canada, and United States. Their backgrounds are as different as the stories they penned, and I found it fascinating. I was truly humbled by this group, which included an actress, a journalist, a farmer, a teacher, and a theater director. If I were Jane Austen, I would have had a ball reading these stories! I highly recommend it, and promise you, you'll love it! Melanie
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reviews of this at LT are quite mediocre, so I didn't expect to like this as much as I did. Twenty short stories, all written by what appears to be British women, that were part of "the Best of the Jane Austen Short Story Competition." All the stories are just a few pages long, and the ties to Jane Austen are loose. As with probably every single collection of short stories, a few were very good, and a few unreadable. Recommended for: For most of these stories, one doesn't need to know a thing about Jane Austen or her novels to read this in order to find enjoyment. Janeites looking for Austen-language stories and Austen fanfic readers will be disappointed. If you're interested in writing that takes its inspiration from former literary works, authors, and places, and then does something completely different, this may be for you. Rating: pleasantly surprised.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A rather ho-hum collection of short stories selected by Sarah Waters as the best entries submitted to a competition sponsored by the Chawton House Library in 2009. All the stories were "inspired" by Jane Austen's life, works, home at Chawton, or the Chawton House Library itself. In the winning story, "Jane Austen over the Styx," the author descends into hell, charged with creating older female characters who are either snobs, scolds, harpies, or selfish manipulators--some of whom are there to give testimony. This is perhaps the best of the lot. I was at times at a loss to see the Austen connections in others, such as the fantasy-like "Broken Words." Overall, not a bad collection, but very hit and miss.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dancing With Mr. Darcy is a collection of short stories 'inspired' by Jane Austen, some more obvious than others. It contains twenty tales written by women of all ages, with different perspectives on Jane Austen and her writings.Some stories, the connection to Jane Austen is overt while others were merely noted to be influenced by Jane Austen; I found some to be a stretch for this book. The winner "Jane Austen Over the Styx" was interesting, but I also enjoyed "Eight Years Later", could be because Persuasion is one of my favorites.I am glad I added this book to my JA collection, but I was not overly impressed by many of the stories. Granted it was a fun read but readers who may not be an avid JA fan might not find it as entertaining as those of us who do. I would only recommend to JA addicts like myself...
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Some of the stories stood out in my mind and some just passed by. It does start with a standout one, Jane Austen over the Styx by Victoria Owens entertained me, the idea of Jane being judged by her lesser characters made me smile.Second Thoughts by Elsa A Solender has Jane Austen contemplate her acceptance of marriage.Jayne by Kirst Mitchell is a quite short story about a woman dealing with compromise to get ahead.The Delaford Ladies Detective Agency has a Sense and Sensibility meets Miss Marple meets No 1 Ladies Detective Agency vibe. I enjoyed it.Tears fall on Orkney is a tale of love and understanding, inspired by, not one of my favourites. Eight Years Later is another tale of love lost and found. I didn't care for Broken Words at all.Miss Austen Victorious features an Austen play during World War II England. Cleverclogs tugged at my heartstrings. Snowmelt resonated deeply (I work as a Librarian). The Watershed I found unremarkable, as I did Somewhere. The Oxfam Dress went nowhere and didn't resonate at all. Marianne and Ellie modernised characters and was okay, The Jane Austen Hen Weekend was meh. One Character in Search of her Love Story Role was an interesting exercise but tried too hard to be clever (footnotes, really?). Second Fruits was a nice encapsulated romance. The School Trip was nice and simple. We Need to Talk about Mr Collins, honestly I barely remember, it didn't really resonate at all, likewise with Bina.Overall not a bad set of stories, probably something there for most. None of them made me want to hunt up all the works of the various authors though.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Short stories are not one of my favorite genres, but I couldn't resist adding this collection of Jane Austen-inspired stories to my wish list. One of my friends who shares a love for Jane Austen spotted it there and bought it for me for Christmas. I've been dipping into it one story at a time until I ran out of stories.All of the stories were entered in a Jane Austen short story competition. The panel of judges included well-known novelist Sarah Waters, as well as a descendant of one of Jane Austen's brothers. It must have been difficult to select the winner from the stories included in this collection. There were just three stories that disappointed me, and several that I really liked.My favorites selections:Tears Fall on Orkney by Nancy Saunders. I expect this story of unrequited love will linger the longest in my memory. The understated tone hit me just right.Miss Austen Victorious by Esther Bellamy. A local theatre company rehearses Pride and Prejudice during the Blitz.Cleverclogs by Hilary Spiers. A young reader experiences her first Jane Austen novel.One Character in Search of Her Love Story Role by Felicity Cowie. I was hooked from the first sentence: Hannah Peel was dispatched by her author to shadow heroines from Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre.The variety of writing styles in the collection almost guarantee that every Jane Austen fan will find something to his or her liking. Recommended.