Fantastic content from a wonderful author. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I was given a copy of this book by the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I read this at the hairdresser the day before Christmas Eve, sitting down and relaxing while my hair was being done. This is a good book to pass the time, and isn't taxing to read. Unfortunately, that's one of the only good things I can say about it.
The problem with modelling a story on such a well-known classic is that readers love the characters. When you put "Pride and Prejudice" in the title of a book, you are asking to people to draw comparisons between the two stories. This one falls short.
The main character, Darcy, is a go-getter who looks likt she's tough but is a softie on the inside. Here the similarities end. The other characters bear little or no resemblance to their counterparts and the storyline ambles along the predictable path without much sparkle or humour.
I wish I could have liked it more because I was really in the mood for a Christmas romance novel.
If you aren't familiar with Pride & Prejudice, if you are a teen or a tween , then perhaps this novel is for you. It wasn't for me.

“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

If you throw a classic love story into a pot, add a few unexpected twists to the mix, and sprinkle it with some Christmas cheer, some familial angst, and some naughty bits, that’s pretty much what this book is all about.

Pride, Prejudice and Mistletoe by Melissa De La Cruz is as the title suggests a Christmas-themed spin on Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice. This novel however, also features some interesting gender-swaps and it is set in present time New York, within a fictional small town called Pemberley, Ohio.

Darcy Fitzwilliam, our heroine, is a beautiful, successful, and brilliant business woman who has never been in love. When she returns home to visit with her estranged family over Christmas, she bumps into her childhood rival Luke Bennet, and her life suddenly takes a dramatic turn for the romantic.

I appreciate the fact that Darcy Fitzwilliam was written as a strong, independent, and business savvy woman with an interesting inner life. I also liked Luke Bennet, the slightly antagonistic furniture carpenter who seems to be completely at peace with his small-town life. They are interesting opposites to each other, however, I found it hard to like Darcy. I also thought that the build-up to their romance was a little rushed and would have liked for some more back and forth between the two of them before they officially became an item. The relationship I ended up appreciating the most was that of Darcy and her gay best friend Bingley as it felt genuine. It was easy to picture the two of them sipping drinks together, making snide remarks about people in public and fussing over each other’s love lives.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, and I usually don’t enjoy straight up romance novels, so that is saying something. The romantic and sexy parts of the novel did not feel awkward or cliché. There were also some genuinely funny and emotional moments where I caught myself smiling along with the characters, or feeling upset on their behalf.

However, there were a few formatting and timeline issues in this novel that bothered me to such an extent that I completely lost the flow of the narrative, especially during the last chapter of the book. I also thought that the reason behind Darcy’s familial estrangement felt a little flimsy in such a contemporary setting. When I discovered why her relations with her father were so strained I felt disappointed, like there should be more to it.

In addition, the synopsis of the book is a little bit misleading. It mentions several things that never make an appearance in the book at all and paint a very different picture of who Darcy is as a character.

In conclusion, I found Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe to be an enjoyable quick read, and an interesting twist on the original novel, but I would clarify that it leans more towards being lightly “inspired by” the original, more so than being a modern re-telling of the story. Diehard fans of Jane Austen might not be the intended audience for this book, but if you like fun and light romance stories, and you are in the market for a laid-back Christmas read, this would be a book for you!

This book was a train wreck. I should have tossed it into the DNF pile, but I kept rubbernecking right to the very end - mostly to test my blood pressure levels, I'm sure.

Firstly, the incorrect spelling and grammar was very distracting. So many simple errors that even the most junior editor should have picked up. ‘No’ instead of ‘know’, and ‘breaks’ instead of ‘brakes’ were the ones that raised my salt levels the most. Many times characters were referred to by the incorrect gender also. Hopefully this was sorted out before it hit the shelves. (I received a net-galley copy - thanks anyway!)

The plot is a modernised version of Pride and Prejudice with a gender swap. Darcy is female, and Lizzie becomes Luke.

There's nothing particularly imaginative about the gender swap scenario. I know it's been used over and over by fanfic writers, for starters. (I firmly place this type of book into the published fanfic category. I don't have any issues with that - let’s celebrate published fanfic! But then, I became all sad that the book ended up being badly written fanfic with a pretty cover.)

Can I just add this cover is particularly pretty and it will probably boost sales?

The book's target audience would appear to be much younger than myself. The point of view remain's Darcy's throughout. A couple of times we got (literally) pages of nothing but rambling from Darcy. I particularly remember the rather vein-opening scrutiny of The Twelve Days of Christmas (as in the carol) and The Gilmore Girls (as in the tv show). I think I was supposed to find these passages amusing, but… Maybe I’m just too old...

I have now had a quick look at the author’s other works and noticed she has written a plethora of young adult titles. Therefore, I’d firmly drop this one into the young adult genre too. The lack of actual conflict in the plot might be overlooked by the younger reader and there is no graphic sex scenes or obscene language.

There is a slight Christmas setting, but as per usual it doesn't make too much difference to the storyline. There is a nice touch with some gift giving towards the end, so I'll add a star for that effort.

Looking for another positive and all I can come up with is this was a fast read. This is probably the only reason why I bothered to finish it. Even then, it was quite a struggle from around the 50% mark onwards. Ms Cruz tried to spice things up too by adding another conflict for her characters as a climactic cliffhanger towards the end, and she failed miserably. The conflict was ridiculous and forced and I’m now wondering if Joanna Trollope’s Sense and Sensibility is a piece of fine literature. Mmm… No.

Probably a slightly generous 2 out of 5.

Darcy’s an ass and she doesn’t get better

Let’s start with the positives, shall we? A genderflipped Pride and Prejudice is an interesting idea, as is swapping around the names of the guys from Pride and Prejudice so they still go by Darcy (now female) and Bingley (still a guy and gay). The Bennet boys are now Luke, Jim, Kit, and Lyle, and Darcy has three brothers who I’ve already forgotten because they don’t matter.

Bingley and Jim Bennet are adorable. They get a meet cute and fall head over heels, moving very quickly which is both noted and hand-waved in text. Unfortunately, their relationship disappears about the halfway mark and is only mentioned once after that.

The writing is not the best… grammatically, it’s mostly okay, apart from perhaps too many long sentences and that time when Darcy “power-walked clumsily to the bed". There is a tendency towards telling rather than showing, and the middle of a kiss is not the appropriate time to internally monologue about Christmases Past. However, it’s the editing where it really falls down. There are continuity issues, inconsistent characterisation and backstory, characters reacting to things that hadn’t actually been said, and a minor twist is revealed only retrospectively at 96%. The author even gets her parents’ names wrong once.

I’m very much not a fan of the main character, Darcy Fitzwilliam. She received a well-deserved smackdown at 50% and instead of learning from it, everyone around her falls over themselves to convince her that it was undeserved and she’s like the best person ever. Even said smackdown-er apologises at least twice. The whole point of the Lizzie Bennet Smackdown (tm) is that it's right! And Darcy learns! And apologises! Not the other way around. She really is a terrible person who strings her high school sweetheart along for about twelve years afterwards "as a constant ego booster" and thinks buying her assistant a Christmas gift makes her not selfish! Her declaration of love comes when both of them are engaged to other people! Her own father acknowledges that she’s selfish and entitled but that’s okay because it’s a family trait. She doesn’t learn anything! Ever!

There’s also a bit of internalised misogyny as she is ashamed to like Britney Spears and Gilmore Girls, calling Kate Middleton a “social climbing puppet”. She constantly asserts that she doesn’t need a guy to be happy and then is unhappy until she gets the guy. This has the unfortunate implication that even if you’re happy and successful alone, you’re secretly not happy and would be happier with a husband and child, which… no.

Overall, this book was a great idea but has inconsistent editing and a selfish main character. Its only redeeming point is a cute side couple who disappear too quickly. I can’t really recommend it.

I received a copy of this story from the author through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the premise of this novel. I’m a big P&P fan and I quite like all things fan fiction. The idea of Darcy being the woman was a novel treat. However, this book falls short. It’s not a true gender flip of the characters of the original, which is fine, but the characteristics of the original that were used, didn’t gel well with the narrative. The pacing is kind of all over the place and the plot, choppy. The ending felt like an incomplete yet oversold story.

It’s sweet enough and many readers may like it, but for me, it won’t be a memorable one.

** I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own**

I was busting to read this - I actually requested t on NetGalley 3 times before I was approved to review it - but in the end it was a bit of a miss for me.

I think there were a few reasons for this...
First, I feel like anyone trying to do a modernised Pride and Prejudice has an uphill battle because Bridget Jones did such a fantastic job. Also, I felt like this one couldn't decide whether it was set in Austen's time or contemporary - it didn't feel comfortable in either to me.
It was a super quick read, which can be nice but in this case I really missed some character development. It almost felt like there was a lot of effort on matching bits of the story to the original at the expense of the storyline itself.
There was a lot of brand name dropping, which I found a bit distracting (and also a bit annoying - I think some of the brand names didn't quite match up with the products they were being assigned to?)

Overall i gave it 2 out of 5 stars, which for me means that something is 'ok' (I'm not sorry I read it but it wasn't great either.
I feel like fans of P&P with either hate it or really appreciate the way the author tried to get into Darcy's head and explain the aloofness and love it.

Darcy ran away from her family, when her dreams didn't fit in their plan. Coming home 8 years later is understandably uncomfortable, especially when she realises what she's been missing all these years. Set against a backdrop of Christmas stress, family and love.