Pride and Premeditation

I came across this book by chance when I was browsing audiobooks and since it's been a while that I've picked up an Austen retelling (I used to that pretty frequently until a couple of years ago) and that I'm feeling no mood to pick up a fantasy, I thought I should give this a try. And it was a delight.

I'm glad that just like she mentioned in the author's note, she took quite a few liberties with regency England because it means we are able to get a very feminist and unexpectedly bold retelling of Pride and Prejudice here. It remains familiar by giving us the characters who keep most of their original attitudes and personalities as well as sprinkling the story with some of the most famous lines from the classic. But we also get a braver and bolder Elizabeth who wants to be a solicitor and challenges her father that she'll prove her capabilities, and then clashes with Darcy when they both inadvertently get involved in the same case. The mystery solving can be a bit predictable though I didn't guess one part of it till almost the end, but the writing and banter just keep us engaged throughout. The writing is a lot of fun, very witty and entertaining, and gives us quite a few memorable confrontations between Lizzie and Darcy. And I didn't feel at all miffed that it's too much of a slow burn because I was just chuckling at most of the story and loved the characters a lot. And it's perfectly complemented by some evocative narration by Morag Sims.

Now that I've encountered the author's lovely writing, I'm quite interested to see how she retells Sense and Sensibility and hope to get to it soon.

I haven't read Pride & Prejudice (yet), so I stepped into this book with basically no knowledge of the original story. I don't know if this is an advantage or a disadvantage, but I didn't feel like I needed to have had read the original story to like this one.
I love how feminist Pride & Premeditation is. Elizabeth tries to prove that she - just like any other men - can be a sollicitor or barrister. I loved this aspect: fighting the patriarchy.
I also really appreciated that the story wasn't too predictable (at least not for me). Near the ending, I had an idea who murdered Mr. Bingley (and turned out to be right), but I really loved the fact that I guessed it, instead of thinking it was too predictable. I flew through the book and really enjoyed it.

Thank you TBR and Beyond tours, Edelweiss and Harperteen for the free review copy. This in no way affected my opinion.