One of my goals in 2021 is to read more. See other books I've read or listened to here.
Death at Pemberley is PD James’ homage to and continuation of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin.
After the events of Pride and Prejudice, Elisabeth and Mr Darcy are once again thrown into drama but in a stuffy British way. .
I’ve never read P&P, having done so might have increased my enjoyment of this book. But maybe not. I read this book as part of my project (“project”) to read all of PD James’ work. We ALL know I love her mysteries, but she has a few other types of books as well. I read this along side with one of her mysteries and her only Sci Fi. What I really did enjoy about Death Comes to Pemberley was that is was obvious that this book was an exercised for James to write in the style of another author. Although I haven’t read from the author she is emulating, I feel like this was a really successful take on it. The writing in this felt very “classic”! I liked that this book was a big departure from the kind of writing I’m used to reading from PD James. I liked that I was able to live vicariously through this book as far as reading a book (P&P) that I will never actually read. Or don’t even plan or intend to read. There was a lot about Pride and Prejudice in this book so I feel like I don’t really need to read that one now. Although this is billed as a mystery, there isn’t much mystery here. But I feel like that was an intentional choice as that is how a P&P mystery would be. More stuffy as well as easy to solve is how I would assume Jane Austin would have written this “sequel”. I certainly didn’t dislike this book, I thought it was fine. I would recommend this book for fans of Pride and Prejudice, people who enjoy retellings of classic novels, readers who like to read continuations of classics written by modern authors, and of course PD James lovers, like me!
What modern retelling or continuation is your favorite?
This book can be seen in my June Wrap Up.