LynneC’s review of In Want of a Wife? by Cathy Williams
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern 1 Apr 11

In this new series from Harlequin, they’ve taken some literary classics and used the themes to make contemporary stories for the Modern line. Seems a difficult request, and from reading the first in the series, I’m not sure it’s an entirely successful one.

I can’t entirely blame Cathy Williams for this, because in some ways she has the worst of the lot. Most romance readers have a copy of Pride and Prejudice on their shelves, and the astonishing success of the BBC’s serialization of the series means many of us picture Colin Firth in this book. Not a bad thing, either.

But how do you love a clever, beautifully written story of early nineteenth century manners and morals and transpose them to the modern day? It just doesn’t work. While Williams does her best to reconcile the stories, there are some serious disconnects that mean this story is neither one thing nor the other, and it fails to entirely convince.

Lizzy Sharp (could we have a sly reference to Vanity Fair here?) meets Louis Jumeau in a snowstorm. Louis has bought the local manor house for his boutique hotel business, and this is Scotland in winter. Lizzy is riding a motor bike, although from the extended conversation she and Louis have on the road, I wonder if Ms. Williams has ever ridden pillion. You can’t have a conversation on a motor bike unless you also have radio transmitters in the helmets. But they manage, due to the magic of romanceland, one imagines.

Louis makes some assumptions about Lizzy and Lizzy about Louis. Lizzy is irritating here, far more TSTL than Lizzie Bennett. She doesn’t just jump to conclusions, she hangs on for dear life and won’t let go, even when she has no reason to think things like that. There is no Lady Catherine in this story, which is a shame, but there are all the sisters, with different fates which more or less parallel the differences in the original.

But some things just don’t work well. The main impetus behind the story, the need to marry, just isn’t there. In the original, if Mrs. Bennett doesn’t get at least one of her daughters married off, once her husband dies, they could find themselves in the poorhouse. It’s more than love, it’s necessity. The desperation adds to Mrs. Bennett’s character, and to the obligations her daughters feel under. And it explains why Lizzie’s rejection of Mr. Collins is so foolhardy, as well as the only decision Lizzie can make. In In Want of a Wife? Lizzy is a teacher in London and she can walk away at any time, with no real hardships for her family. Williams does her best to explain that, but it seems forced and doesn’t work for me.

Mr. and Mrs. Bennett go from clearly delineated, fascinating characters to wallpaper. They don’t come to life, they are just loving parents who want the best for their daughters. The secondary couple, Jane and Nicholas, is also a cipher, just a young couple who want to get married, dissuaded by Louis and then persuaded again.

Louis suffers from being under the shadow of Fitzwilliam Darcy. To be honest, he doesn’t stand a chance. There is none of Darcy’s reticence, almost shyness, that helps to explain his terse nature. Louis is, frankly, a fairly standard Modern/Presents hero, and in many books would be perfectly adequate. But not next to Darcy.

Lizzy and Louis go through their story, and it’s partly because I know the story, not just the end but the bits in between, and partly because comparisons keep popping up that I find this a disappointing, disjointed read, with nothing to lift the story and make me go “hmmm.”

Oh, and the cover? Hideous. That simpering woman is by no means either the Lizzy of this story or the Lizzie of the original.

While I understand that Harlequin wants to take some of the themes and the characters from the books, and not mirror the books themselves, comparisons are inevitable, and, of course, the Harlequin author will suffer. Without the length Austen had to explore the characters, without the leisure to explore and write the characters, they are bound to come off worse.

Grade: D

Summary:

He’s the last man in the world she would ever marry! To Lizzy Sharp, businessman Louis Jumeau is a real-life Mr Darcy: insufferably proud, infuriatingly prejudiced…and impossibly good-looking! Louis knows exactly what gold-digging families like the Sharps are after – his money. But the universally acknowledged truth is that this billionaire needs a wife. Independent Lizzy might not seem the perfect candidate, but her curves are proving powerfully tempting. And the arrogant and well-practised Louis is sure all it will take to wed – and bed! – her is a little seductive persuasion… The Powerful and the Pure When Beauty tames the brooding Beast…

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