Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe

Title: Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe

Author: Melissa de la Cruz

Publisher: 31 October 2017 by Hachette Australia

Pages: 240 pages

How I Read It: ARC book

Genre: romance, contemporary, retellings

My Rating: 2.5 cups

Synopsis:

Darcy Fitzwilliam is 29, beautiful, successful, and brilliant. She dates hedge funders and basketball stars and is never without her three cell phones—one for work, one for play, and one to throw at her assistant (just kidding). Darcy’s never fallen in love, never has time for anyone else’s drama, and never goes home for Christmas if she can help it. But when her mother falls ill, she comes home to Pemberley, Ohio, to spend the season with her dad and little brother.

Her parents throw their annual Christmas bash, where she meets one Luke Bennet, the smart, sardonic slacker son of their neighbor. Luke is 32 and has never left home. He’s a carpenter and makes beautiful furniture, and is content with his simple life. He comes from a family of five brothers, each one less ambitious than the other. When Darcy and Luke fall into bed after too many eggnogs, Darcy thinks it’s just another one night stand. But why can’t she stop thinking of Luke? What is it about him? And can she fall in love, or will her pride and his prejudice against big-city girls stand in their way?

My Thoughts

“See, it is an assumption universally made that any beautiful, brilliant, single woman who is rich as hell will be in want of a husband.”

I simply cannot help myself - when I see anything related to ‘Pride and Prejudice’ - I rush in. On this occasion we have a modern day retelling of the classic but with its own unique twists - gender reversals for a start! The characters and storyline are bought to present day in this cutsie contemporary romance with just a slight sprinkling of the beloved tale of old.

Despite my eagerness and willingness, this book just fell flat in it’s delivery on many levels. The writing for a start, is to be found wanting - from plot structure to sentence configuration. It lacked any emotional depth or deep character connections - they were petty, shallow and extremely judgemental. Now I can hear you say, but that is Darcy from the original - but this modern day female version was supposedly some high flying, self made New York millionaire - but what we got was an insolent, moody female who left a lot to be desired. The two just did not match up. And sadly, for me, Darcy never really changed or grew - she remained immature and self centred. The arrogance just became annoying.

“She was self-centered and egotistical and it was true, aside from a select few she really did only care about herself.”

Which leads me to the book blurb - somewhat misleading if truth be told. Several things made mention of simply do not appear in the book e.g. basketball stars or three cell phones. The ‘Pride and Prejudice’ references are simply that, a small referral and not to be truthfully assigned as a retelling - Austen fans be warned.

Overall, this is a quick and easy read, perfect for a weekend Christmas getaway. Whilst the concept was appealing it never really lived up to its potential.

‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life with someone who you get along with perfectly well but you’re not in love with, or would you rather be alone until the love of your life shows up?’

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release