After reading Pamela Aiden's "Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman" trilogy a few months ago, I found this to be merely a much simpler version. Grange doesn't go much beyond the events we already know of from the original novel, and Darcy himself doesn't seem to have much depth at all. He switches from being determined to stop thinking about Elizabeth to suddenly proposing without almost any explanation at all. His feelings flip flop too quickly throughout the novel with no basis. Overall, I knew exactly what was going to happen - there were no surprises. Nothing happens to Darcy that we don't already know about to some degree.
The book was enjoyable for the story itself, and of course I found myself smiling when Elizabeth finally accepted. The glimpses of their life after marriage were cute too. If you really want an in-depth look at Darcy, I recommend the Pamela Aiden trilogy. Although it can be a little far-fetched a times, she adds a slew of new characters for Darcy to interact with, and really shows the way his mind works.
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I had finally read Bel Canto last year, and I really wished I'd read it sooner. It was such an amazing work, and although I haven't gotten around to reading anything else by her yet, I got the chance to read this one pretty soon after it came out. I expected something if not as good as Bel Canto, at least comparable, but I was disappointed.
It was a relatively quick read, but I found myself finishing the book just for the sake of finishing it. There was something about the pacing that bothered me that I can't quite put my finger on, and I think that Patchett is capable of showing human connections that run much deeper than they did in this novel. As another reviewer stated, it felt as though she was only scratching the surface of these characters - they didn't have nearly as much depth as they were capable of having.
Overall, the story was an interesting one, and it has a lot of potential to be a great novel - it just doesn't quite get there.
