If you want something special, a bit humorous and romantic to read for Valentine’s Day, here are a couple of suggestions. Please note, I found these as ebooks at Amazon. I read fiction almost exclusively on my Kindle, and I have not checked where else or in what formats they’re available.
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Mr. Darcy’s Valentine
I just finished reading Mr. Darcy’s Valentine by Heather Moll. It’s a fun Pride and Prejudice variation that takes place nearly all in London, where both Elizabeth Bennet and her sister Jane have come to stay with their aunt and uncle, the Gardiners. Jane is there to escape her mother’s lamentations over Mr. Bingley’s defection and to either get over Mr. Bingley or have a chance of seeing him again. Elizabeth goes to London as well, because her aunt fears she’s in danger of falling for Mr. Wickham, though Lizzy insists her heart has not been touched. While in London, Lizzy is introduced to a clergyman from Surrey, Mr. Elgin, who seems like a nice man, and has decent prospects. He seems to want to spend more time with her. The children in the house are obsessed with St. Valentine’s Day, which is fast approaching, and they’re busy making valentines to give to everyone they know.
Mr. Darcy meanwhile realizes that his friend Bingley has not gotten over his attraction to Jane Bennet as quickly as expected, and Darcy begins to wonder if he was wrong to interfere. Then the two men come across the two eldest Bennet sisters at a concert hall, Darcy whispers to Bingley that they are there, and Bingley zeros in on Jane at once, leaving Darcy to converse with Miss Elizabeth.
This story goes quickly, as it’s a shorter-length novel, and there is both humor and romance. It makes for a nice read for early February. If you don’t have a current valentine, just let Mr. Darcy or Elizabeth be your proxy and enjoy.
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As Only Mr. Darcy Can
This is a slightly edited version of my earlier review of As Only Mr. Darcy Can by Laura Hile. I posted it a couple months ago, so forgive the repeat so soon, but I add it here because it’s so relevant to Valentine’s Day. I have read it twice now, and when I came back to it, I remembered it with delight as “the one with the valentines.”
Staid Mr. Darcy has left Meryton behind, and thinks that nothing is likely to take him back there again. But he happens to glimpse some colorful valentines in a shop, and on an impulse he purchases them. Later he asks himself why. But then he realizes that he has left the Bennet family without any information warning them away from George Wickham. He decides to send hints in a poem, by way of an anonymous valentine, to Elizabeth Bennet.
Sometime later, Wickham, on the run from the magistrate’s men, gets his trunk mixed up with a noblewoman’s trunk at a coaching inn, and finds he has nothing to change into from his gravy-stained breeches but women’s clothing. Then he has an idea.… All these characters, and even Miss Darcy, wind up at Hunsford and Rosings Park, and then even more interesting things start happening.
I find particular delight in how buying a stack of valentines seems to crack open Darcy’s personality. Soon he’s crafting bits of poetry and drawing whimsical images. It becomes a playful healing practice for him, breaking him out of his stiff, awkwardly reserved persona. This is a fun story, and not to be missed by those who love stories based on Jane Austen’s novels.