My Pick of the Year 2018

Well the Earth has orbited the Sun another time and we've reached the end of the year. For me, it's been a very busy year in work and at home, with a new job, plus some major building work, which is still not entirely complete (gaaaah!). Unfortunately this has impacted on my mental energy and reading time. I got far less read this year than I'd like, and didn't review everything. However, I still had some good reads, and here is my pick of them.


My first top pick is Jan Hahn's The Child. This is a variation of Pride & Prejudice where Darcy leaves England after Hunsford, meaning there was limited help to resolve the matter of Lydia's elopement. Stumbling across Elizabeth a few years later, he finds that the family is disgraced and Elizabeth has the care of 'the child'. Considering that she was beneath him a few years previously, she is now from a family which is not only disgraced, but is almost embracing that fact, by having the source of their disgrace as part of the family, rather than being correctly banished. This was such a romantic read and I loved it.

The Events at Branxbourne by Caitlin Williams was another 5 star read for me. This was very different to the previous work I've read by this author, being quite an angsty story! It varies the events of Pride & Prejudice. We open with a real car crash of a scene, where the former Miss Elizabeth Bennet, now married (to somebody who is NOT Darcy) is worried that she has killed her husband! She regrets the man she turned down, and he's just come back into her life. This is a really gripping story, which I found hard to put down.


My next pick is Lover's Knot by Jenetta James. This is something a little different; Pride & Prejudice combined with a murder mystery with a dash of romance. While Jane and Elizabeth are staying at Netherfield one of Bingley's footmen is murdered, leaving Darcy in the position where he cannot flee his growing attraction to the ineligible Miss Elizabeth Bennet and instead is left wondering whether she is safe from the madman on the loose. This was a 4½ star read for me, and something refreshingly different.


Drawing Mr Darcy: Sketching His Character by Melanie Rachel is the first part in a duology which sees Elizabeth having had a very different upbringing than in canon Pride & Prejudice. Here, she has been taken in, like Mansfield Park's Fanny Price, at the age of 10, to the household of extended family. Unlike Fanny, she is very much cherished and loved there. One of her accomplishments is that she is a talented artist. When she meets Mr Darcy she is already aware of him, as she is friends with Miss Darcy. So she is able to draw Mr Darcy's character from a wider perspective than in canon, and doesn't take his comments as much to heart. I hope to read the second part of this story, Drawing Mr Darcy: A Faithful Portrait, very soon! This was a 4½ star read for me.

A Period of Exquisite Felicity by Amy D'Orazio is a Pride & Prejudice variation. In this, Elizabeth and Darcy got informally engaged, pending Mr Bennet's consent, up in Derbyshire, having done so before hearing the news about Lydia's elopement. After a very short 'period of exquisite felicity' Elizabeth broke off the engagement. Fast forward a year and she will be meeting with Mr Darcy again, at the Bingley's home of Netherfield.... This was a 4 star read for me.


My last selection is The Darcy Legacy by Joana Starnes. This is a Pride & Prejudice variation with a supernatural twist, which sees us spending some time with the ghosts of Mr Darcy's parents! This was a light-hearted, enjoyable read.

What do you think of my selection? Have you read any of these?

I hope you had a good reading year in 2018. Did you read anything that blew your socks off? If so, please let me know in the comments.