An extraordinary woman in a turbulent era

"Jane Austen herself would have been very well pleased."
Beverley Wong, author of Pride & Prejudice Prudence

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Excerpt from Mr. Darcy’s Daughter: Part One
THE INCLEMENT WEATHER INTO which the Gardiners drove as they left the boundaries of Pemberley did nothing to improve Cassandra’s apprehensive mood.

Travelling South through Leicestershire, they had hoped to reach Northhampton before nightfall, but the driving rain rendered that prospect more hazardous and less likely with every mile.

Forced to break journey at the small town of Market Harborough, they took rooms at the local hostelry, only to find Rebecca Tate and her maid Nelly ensconced next door. They had met at the top of the stairs, going down to dinner, and soon discovered that Julian Darcy had also written to his mother-in-law, though not, it appeared, in the same desperate terms that he had used in his letter to Richard Gardiner.

Rebecca apologised to Cassy for her non-attendance at their meeting on the previous afternoon, confessing that Julian’s note had driven all else from her mind, leaving her time only to make hurried preparations for their journey to Cambridge.

“With Mr Tate already in London, I decided that Nelly and I would go to Cambridge on our own,” she declared, adding, “I felt I could not wait one more day, when there may have been something I could do to help. Oh, my poor Josie, I cannot imagine what has afflicted her. Why Cassy, you must remember what a bright, happy girl she used to be when she lived at home in Matlock. It must be the house—I am sure of it. It’s cold and badly ventilated, quite unhealthy, especially in Winter. I said when they moved in, it was most unsuitable,” she declared.

Both Richard and Cassy held their peace, not wishing to alarm her by revealing what they already knew. It was becoming clear to them that Julian had not been as candid with his mother-in-law as he had been with them. Cassy knew her husband would reveal nothing, nor would she.

At dinner, Richard enquired politely as to how Mrs Tate and her maid had travelled to Market Harborough from Matlock. It transpired that they were using one of the Tates’ smaller vehicles. Mr Tate, they were told, had taken the carriage to London. Cassy was immensely relieved. It dispensed with the obligation for Richard to offer them seats in his carriage for the rest of the journey, which he would surely have done had they been travelling by coach. As it happened, they were well accommodated and, before retiring to their respective rooms, they agreed to leave for Cambridge after an early breakfast.

When they set out on the following morning, Cassy confessed to her husband, “I doubt if I could have concealed for much longer what we know of Josie’s condition, if Becky Tate had been travelling with us to Cambridge.”

He agreed. “It would certainly have been difficult to pretend that we knew no more than she does,” he said.

The streets were wet as they drove into Cambridge.
The air was cold, and a sharp wind whipped the branches of the trees in the park and penetrated the carriage. Cassandra drew her wrap close around her, and yet she was cold and uncomfortable. The rain, though not as hard as before, was falling steadily as they approached the modest house that Julian and Josie rented in a quiet close not far from his college. It was not an unattractive dwelling, from an architectural point of view, but the garden appeared neglected, with sprouting bulbs and weeds competing for attention, and the house, with its blinds closed, seemed dark and unwelcoming. Once indoors, the aspect improved a little. Mrs Tate was at pains to explain how she had, on a previous visit, attempted to brighten up the parlour with new drapes and a few items of modern furniture, banishing an old horsehair sofa and two worn armchairs to the attic.

Julian met them in the hall, into which they were admitted by an anxious-looking young maidservant. While Mrs Tate insisted upon going upstairs to her daughter immediately, Richard and Cassy were ushered into the large but rather untidy parlour to the right of the hallway, where tea was to be taken.

Despite the best efforts of Mrs Tate, there was no disguising the general drabness of the room. Dark wood frames and striped wallpaper did little to help, while piles of books and journals lying on tables and strewn on the floor beside the chairs added clutter to a cheerless environment.

Only the fire burned brightly, keeping them warm, while the rain continued outside. How on earth, Cassy wondered, was anyone to recover from depression in surroundings such as these? Writing later to her mother, she said:

Mama, everything is in such a state of disarray; it would drive me insane to live here. I cannot believe that Josie has been so ill as not to notice the disorderly condition of the house and the neglected garden. As for my poor brother, how anyone who has spent most of his life at Pemberley could possibly endure such wretched surroundings, not from poverty or privation, but by choice, I cannot imagine. Yet Julian does not appear to notice. His study, if it could be called that, so untidy and disorganised does it seem, is his chief retreat, when he is not with Josie or at work in his beloved laboratory.

After a few months I am finally able to sit down and write a review for this book, in fact, over the past few months I’ve read it twice. I love it. The fifth book in this series, Mr. Darcy’s Daughter continues by following Cassandra, Cassy, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s daughter. I love Cassy and her strong personality. She is headstrong, intelligent and dependable.

In the book Cassy is faced with many challenges and comes out the heroine of the book with charm and class. While her brother Julian is struggling with his own family and work Cassy becomes responsible for many of the tasks of running the Pemberly estate. Later in the book she becomes fully responsible for raising Julian’s son to become the heir of the estate. Romance is in bloom with Cassy’s daughter when the family is introduced to a new young American. Mystery is also involved in this book and Cassy’s son Darcy takes part of solving the crime.

I enjoyed the second half of the book and felt it moved fast. The mystery was a new twist to the series and I thought it added a fun addition to the storyline. My only regret is not rereading the previous four books in the series before reading this book so I could be refreshed with many of the characters and families.

I recommend these books to any Jane Austen or Pride and Prejudice lover. This series is hands down the best Pride and Prejudice sequel I have found.

Number five in the series casts the spotlight back on the Darcys; the main character is Cassandra Gardiner, daughter of Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth Darcy. When Cassy’s brother Julian abdicates his role as Pemberley heir, it’s up to Cassy to manage the estate, raise Julian’s son, and deal with the problems of her own family, which include a murder investigation and a mysterious American to whom Cassy’s daughter Lizzie has formed an unsuitable attachment. A worthy addition to this popular series.

In Mr. Darcy’s Daughter, book five in The Pemberley Chronicles, author Rebecca Ann Collins’ focuses on Cassandra, the beautiful and intelligent daughter of Pride and Prejudice’s Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. It is now 1864 and Cassy has been happily married to Dr. Richard Gardiner for twenty seven years with a large family of her own. When her troubled younger brother Julian renounces his inheritance and fails in his responsibilities to his own family, Cassy must step forward and assist in the running of Pemberley and raise his son Anthony as the heir to the Pemberley estate. Bound by honor and duty, Cassy is indeed her father’s daughter, and accepts the responsibilities, balancing her role as daughter, wife, mother, sister and aunt.

In the mean time Mr. Carr, a single man in possession of a good fortune enters the neighborhood looking to purchase a country estate, and sure enough he is immediately considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters! Cassandra soon discovers that this young American comes with a bit of a past in his family’s mysterious connection to the Pemberley estate prior to their immigration to Ireland. Cassy’s young daughter Lizzie is quickly drawn to him even though his grandparents came from the wrong end of the social ladder. Also included in this Victorian drama are an array of family travails and life events challenging Cassy and the whole Pemberley clan including mental illness, death, deception, theft and murder pressing the plot along.

After reading Mr. Darcy’s Daughter there is no doubt in my mind that author Rebecca Ann Collins is an ardent admirer of Jane Austen, proficient at historical research and has a very creative imagination. Her most loyal fans deeply entrenched in the genealogy and historical minutia of the series will be well pleased to be at home again in her Pemberley universe being served “new wine in an old bottle.” New readers challenged with the multi-layered connections of three generations of families will find themselves frequently referring to the character list provided by the author in the back of the book as to which Mr. Bingley, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Gardiner, et all that she is referring to and how they are connected.

Aficionadas of Austen’s style will see more similarities to Victorian era authors such as Dickens, Gaskell or Trollope in her narrative approach, depth of historical references and sentimental dialogues than to the original inspiration. Even though Ms. Collins does take liberties with Austen’s usual limited scope of “three or four families in a country village,” she is true to formula in opening with a conflict and concluding with a happy marriage. After nearly sixty years since the conclusion of Pride and Prejudice, we can hardly expect more than the essence of Austen to remain and understand the direction that the author has chosen. What has evolved from the happy day that “Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters,” in Pride and Prejudice is a circa 1860’s multilayered family saga that will interest classic historical fiction readers and satisfy Collins’ devoted fans. Jane Austen enthusiasts will find comfort in familiar characters respectfully rendered, but miss the wit and humor of the original.

I seem to be starting a lot of series lately by jumping into them right in the middle. This time I started with the fifth book in the Pemberley Chronicles, Mr. Darcy’s Daughter.

The main character of this book is Cassy, the daughter of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. When I had first heard of this book, not having read the other books in the series, I had an image in my mind of Cassy being a young lady. As I began to read, I realized that Cassy is much older than I originally thought, having five children, most of them grown.

Cassy’s brother Julian is the intended heir to Pemberley, but is more concerned with his research and his relationship with his wife then he is with caring for an estate. As Julian spends more and more time away from Pemberley, Cassy is forced to take on additional responsibilities in caring for the estate.

While Cassy is busy with her new duties, a lot happens to her family and friends that she only finds out about after the fact. Cassy does her best to help where she can, but she is unable to stop one lady’s reputation from being ruined, while another is in danger of being ruined by the same gentleman. Then, everyone at the Pemberley estate is shocked to find that a man has been murdered. Thankfully there are happy moments too, one of them being an engagement.

My first impression of Mr. Darcy’s Daughter, was that there were obviously a lot of characters and plots carried over from the earlier books in the series. Although there was a lot to catch up with, I felt like I had a comfortable grasp on the characters and their relationships to each other after the first twenty pages.

I loved the references to Pride and Prejudice within this book. For example, Cassy’s husband teases her about wanting the nice wealthy gentleman who is visiting to move into the neighborhood as a match for their eighteen-year-old daughter, Lizzie. It was reminiscent of the part in Pride and Prejudice where Elizabeth’s mom talks to her dad about meeting their new neighboor Mr. Bingley.

While Mr. Darcy’s Daughter does not have the witty humor and sarcasm of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, it is still very entertaining. I would recommend this book for anyone who likes Jane Austen sequels, romance novels, or books that have endings with no loose ends.

Rating: 4/5

"Rebecca Ann Collins could not let the 225th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birthday pass without a tribute. Hers is in the form of a fifth novel in the popular Pemberley Series - Mr. Darcy’s Daughter. Instead of doing as several other writers of sequels do (mostly post BBC Series and chiefly American based) who seem to produce strange tales of intrigue and romance in the Gothic style, Ms. Collins uses accurate historical and sociological material to background and develop her characters and weaves a series of interesting stories, with a very authentic flavour. Her latest novel tells the story of Cassandra Darcy - daughter of Darcy and Elizabeth, a very Austen-like young person, now a beautiful young woman with a family (and problems) of her own. How she copes with a series of situations and crises, mostly outside her control, and maintains the integrity of her own family is at the heart of the story. Ms. Collins makes abundantly clear that life is not a bed of roses even for a beautiful and accomplished daughter of Mr. Darcy.
“With her crisp style, lively dialogue and and a seasoning of gentle humour, Ms. Collins’ latest contribution should keep her readers well satisfied."