The second installment in Aidan's Fitzwilliam Darcy trilogy has the Pride and Prejudice
hero wrestling with his infatuation with Elizabeth Bennet. While Aidan's Darcy exhibits the class snobbery and noblesse oblige readers expect of him, he also has a purpose: Darcy decides he must find another woman "of his own station as beautiful and blessed with wit as Elizabeth Bennet, whose charms would banish her from his mind and displace her in his heart." While searching for this woman, Darcy looks after his sister, Georgiana, who is emerging from a long depression. Aidan is comfortable with the overwrought Regency prose and tropes ("The horses, atremble with desire for home, broke into a canter from which no one in the coach wished to dissuade them") and, instead of imitating Austen, convincingly makes Darcy's story her own. Darcy and his loyal valet, Fletcher, travel to Norwycke Castle for a house party where murky inheritances, debt, husband-hunting aristocrats, the supernatural and dead ancestors commingle, resulting in a good time for fans of the series and those enamored of Austen. (Oct.)
